My Blonde Headed Nightmare
by Archilochus
Summary: Some people fall in love. Others get dragged in kicking and screaming. Freddie never wanted to fall for Sam, but as the years go by, he doesn't seem to have much of a choice. Someone up there must find this really amusing. Seddie.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

In an instant, in the mere nanoseconds it took for the image of Carly Shay to be transferred from his retina, to his occipital lobe, and then to the higher cortical regions in his brain, Freddie Benson had fallen in love. It was the first time the young boy had played victim to the illness, but here he was, age eleven, falling in love for the first time and at first sight. They only talked for a few minutes. Freddie had just moved into the Bushwell, and they had exchanged the typical, mundane superficialities of a first acquaintance. But to Freddie, it was nothing short of earth-shattering.

_Carly Shay_. His mind had gone on autopilot. Currently, Freddie was standing in the hallway of the eighth floor of the Bushwell, in between the Benson's and the Shay's apartment doors. Just fifteen (or was it twenty) seconds had passed since Carly had disappeared behind room 8-C. Freddie had gone into the hallway to get something, but now, for the life of him he couldn't remember what. The only thing revolving inside his skull was the conversation he just had with what had to be the most amazing girl on the planet.

"And I get to live across the hall from her for now on," Freddie sighed, eying Carly's apartment door. Slowly, grudgingly, he let his consciousness pierce through the mental fog created by the brunette. He tried hard again to think of why he had ventured out into the hall in the first place, but to no avail. Freddie shrugged his shoulders. "Oh well. I guess I just better go back inside and continue unpacking."

With a final, lovelorn glance at the panel of wood separating him from his one-true-love, Freddie Benson turned around and proceeded to open the door to his own apartment. When he attempted to twist the knob however, he discovered that it wouldn't budge. He tried twisting it again, and then a third time, and finally in the opposite direction.

"Oh crap." A painful cringe wound its way through Freddie's features. His mother had warned him no less than seventeen times this morning _not_ to forget his key. That she as his loving parent and protector would lock it on every occasion in which she was not in the room. Like right now, when she had been called away to the hospital for emergency backup on a major case. She had told Freddie that she might be gone for the majority of the evening, that he was not to leave the apartment, and that if a life-threatening situation required him to do so, not to forget his key. The Bushwell charged steep rates for rescuing locked-out residents, and that psycho doorman named Lewbert would certainly not make things any easier.

"I'm dead," Freddie said. He threw his arms up in the air and let them hit the sides of his legs on the return trip. "I am dead. A few minutes ago, I met the love of my life, and now I'm dead. Smooth Freddie. You move into a new city where no one knows you, and with your one chance to reinvent yourself, you blow it."

Freddie searched every pocket of his jeans in vain, knowing that his key would not be found in any of them. He hit his forehead against the unyielding door, moaning to himself. "This is not according to the Freddie Benson Master Plan." If only he knew one of the residents in this building, then at least he could...

Freddie resumed hitting his head in earnest. "Yeah stupid, if only you knew anyone, like, gee, I don't know, THAT INSANELY HOT GIRL YOU MET FOUR MINUTES AGO!"

The eleven year-old covered his mouth in embarrassment. That had come out a bit louder than expected. Nevertheless, there it was. He could not only come up with an excuse to knock on Carly Shay's door and see her again, he had a pending need. And maybe if she felt sorry enough for him, she'd want to spend the entire evening helping him unpack. Of course, he'd take care of all the heavy stuff, but still...

"Wait." Yet a third time, a foreign object struck the area above Freddie's brow-line. This time, it was his hand. "If I tell her I locked myself out, what if she laughs? What if she thinks I'm a doofus? Aw carrot-sticks, what am I supposed to do now?"

Freddie rubbed his hand down the length of his face. "Okay Freddie, think. You've got to figure out all your options. Option one: knock on Carly's door, and ask for help. Either she'll feel bad for you and you'll have a chance to bond with her, or she'll laugh at you and you might as well kiss the rest of your life goodbye. Option two: go downstairs and ask that Lewbert guy for help. He'll probably make weird animal noises at you, you'll get fined, and when mom comes she'll lock you up in your room until kingdom come. Option three: uh, go find an alley and began a new life with some...friendly...hobo."

The options churned in Freddie's brain. Number two was definitely a 'no,' and frankly, he felt too young to live with a hobo, even a friendly one. This meant only one option remained.

The young boy gulped. He turned to face room 8-C. Though it was a mere six feet away, it seemed further. And his heart wouldn't stop _hammering_.

"Come on," Freddie told himself. He tried to sound brave, but even to himself, his voice resembled a scared boy who probably wouldn't start puberty until a year or two later than his peers. "Sh-sh-she's just a girl. You can do it Freddie."

He took one step. A deep breath. Then another step. He had only traveled five inches. Letting out one last sigh, Freddie hastily traversed the distance to the foreboding slab of wood and knocked on it before his nerve ran out.

If his heart was pounding before, it was beating behind his sternum like a jackhammer now. _It's not too late_, his mind went. _You saw that alley on the drive over. And that hobo looked kinda nice._ Despite his mind's insistence, Freddie stood his ground. He had never been more terrified in his entire life. What would she say, what would she say, what would she say?

An eternity had passed and there was still no answer. Maybe no one had heard him. This latest twist didn't sit any better with Freddie. First he had to worry about whether to stay put or whether to bolt. Now he had to worry about whether to knock again or whether to bolt.

Freddie made out a faint voice from the other side of the door. It sounded like 'okay,' or some type of affirmative. It had a feminine pitch to it. Was it a feminine pitch? Whoever it was, whatever they had said, some type of female was probably on her way to the door right now to open it, and judging from his recent conversation, it was probably Carly Shay.

"Oh my God," Freddie uttered. His chest was on fire. "Stay calm Freddie. Whatever you do just don't screw this up. Do not screw this up."

The door opened.

Freddie's heart-rate almost immediately returned to normal. Along with that, confusion settled into his features. _Huh? _There _was_ a female under the door-frame. Instead of being greeted by a brown-eyed, long-haired brunette however, he was standing in front of a somewhat shorter, blue-eyed, long-haired blonde. This girl was wearing cargo pants that would have looked more appropriate on a boy, funny socks, and a long-sleeved shirt with some kind of pattern he couldn't decipher. Not only that, she was actively consuming a giant leg of fried chicken and staring at him as if he were the most boring individual on the face of the earth.

"Uh...hi?"

The instant the salutation left his lips, Freddie realized that he couldn't have said anything stupider. The girl just stared at him in response. She ripped a rather large chunk of chicken of the leg, guiding it through her lips with her tongue, chewing calmly. Freddie it appeared would have to do the talking.

"I was uh..." For some reason, the girl's chewing made it really hard for Freddie to concentrate. "I was just...I was just wondering if you guys were doing anything right now." Freddie tapped his palm with a fist. An alibi was coming to him. "Me and my mom, we just moved into the apartment across the hall. 8D? You might have seen it."

Freddie gestured behind him, at the door to which he had misplaced his key. The blonde girl didn't seem to care. She just kept staring at him and eating her chicken.

"A-anyway," Freddie continued. "My mom, she's not here right now, but I, I don't know anyone in this city so I thought I'd knock on your door and maybe get to, you know, know you guys."

The girl actually began licking her chicken leg. _Licking_ her chicken leg. The way a small child would lick an ice-cream cone. Sweat beaded on Freddie's forehead. He was starting to get nervous again, and this weird girl was only making things worse.

"So, you...you live here? I mean, of course you live here, why wouldn't you live here? Random dude just knocking on your door and saying 'Hey, I guess we're gonna be neighbors.' You know, I think I met your sister earlier and I have to say, I can really see the family resemblance between the–"

"You know, two words come to mind when I hear you talk," the girl suddenly said. She held her chicken leg to the side but was still staring at Freddie. Her expression revealed only the faintest elevation of interest.

Freddie's focus was nailed to the girl. Something was about to happen. Choosing a few words carefully, he said: "What are they?"

The girl returned the chicken leg to her mouth. "Go away." With that, she spun on her heel and closed the door.

Freddie gaped stupidly at the rejection. He had transitioned from a state of bliss that he never knew existed, to a state of terror that he never knew existed, to now, a state of confusion that he never knew existed. What in the world just happened? _Oh no, maybe this is it. Maybe now, I'm finally gonna go crazy just like my mom._

The door to 8-C opened. The blonde girl. What happened next would set the precedent for a pattern of behavior that Freddie would learn to associate with Sam Puckett. Before he knew what was happening, the girl took her chicken leg, pulled on the waistband of Freddie's jeans, and dropped it down his pants. She then spun on her heel and closed the door.

Freddie stood still for a long time, until he digested this latest development. _Yep. I've gone crazy. Just like mom. No question about it; my life is over. Hobo alley, here I come._

For the third time, the door to 8-C opened. Once again, it was the blonde girl. On this occasion, she had switched her mask of bored almost-irritation to one of honest interest. Also, she had her hand held out in front of her, as if she were expecting something.

"Actually, can I have that back?"

**Disclaimer - I do not own iCarly, it's characters, nor any other shows, characters, music, and/or movies that may be referenced.**


	2. Pierced Through The Heart

**Pierced Through The Heart**

Sam closed the door to room 8-C one last time. She leaned against the wood afterward, contemplating what had just occurred. She remained in this position for quite a while. Sam was eventually interrupted by the sound of footsteps bounding down the staircase leading from the second floor of the loft to the first. A dark-haired brunette jogged into the living room.

"So who was that?" Carly said. She had asked Sam to answer the door since she was up in her bedroom, changing her clothes.

"I don't know, some creepy kid," Sam said. "I think he had the wrong room number."

"Oh," Carly said. She analyzed the blonde more closely, sensing that something was amiss. First of all, unless she was seriously mistaken, Sam looked like she had been deep in thought. Sam was _never_ deep in thought, which piqued Carly's curiosity. Secondly...

"Hey, weren't you eating a piece of chicken?"

Sam nodded in acknowledgment, and any hint of musing departed. "Yeah, I dropped it."

* * *

><p><em>Two months later...<em>

Freddie was leaning against his locker, two hands planted firmly on the metal, bawling his eyes out. It was over. It had only lasted sixty-one days, and it was over. Now what was left of his ruined heart lay in shambles inside his chest, a fresh corpse waiting for rigor mortis to set in. So much for love at first sight.

It had taken him a month to get to know Carly well enough. It had taken another month after that to summon the necessary courage to let her know how he felt about her. But it only took forty-five seconds for his hopes and dreams to go down in flames. He hadn't even set it up the way he wanted to. He didn't declare his love for her under the starlight, out on the Bushwell's fire escape, before the stroke of twelve after a long and intimate conversation. Rather, Freddie declared his love for Carly in an empty school hallway, in front of her locker on a Tuesday afternoon.

He had waited forever for the right moment. He considered confessing to her last night, but no one was home in 8-C when he knocked. He considered confessing to her before school, when she was alone at the lockers, but he got cold feet. He considered confessing to her in between fifth and sixth period, but doggone it, girls _always_ traveled in packs. Finally, he considered confessing to her after school let out. Carly however was involved in a million and one clubs, so he couldn't get to her after the final bell. He had to bide his time, wait for her, and strike when the opportunity presented itself.

Drama club, the last on Carly's list, ended at three fourty-five. Freddie had stood outside the door to the auditorium. He navigated the sea of students streaming out of the double-doors, hoping he could catch Carly. Unfortunately, he did. Freddie anticipated making some sort of excuse for why he was still at school, but Carly did not seem to mind. He said he needed to talk to her, and Carly suggested that they swing by the lockers, since she had to grab a textbook she'd forgotten anyway.

In the first, awkward second, Freddie knew he was doomed. Carly had no idea what was coming, and once Freddie uttered those awful three words, the freeze in her facial expression told him everything. Reluctant, gentle, and for some reason still calm, Carly told him that she didn't feel the same way. He was a good friend though. She hoped they could stay friends.

And so he was crying.

"Well," Freddie choked. "So much for that." He hit his fist weakly against his locker. At least he had been spared the indignity of breaking down when all the kids were still here. Few lingered at school this late in the afternoon.

"I just don't get it," Freddie said, once he had captured his breath. "I fell in love with her the second I saw her. Doesn't that mean anything?" Freddie shut his eyes tightly. As his failure began sinking in, he realized how stupid he had been. He honestly thought that because he had instantly fallen in love with Carly, that meant they were destined for one another. Just like in the movies. Sure, they were fiction, but weren't they based on a theoretical premise?

"I'm such an idiot," Freddie said. He had even gone through the effort of calling his mother an hour ago and telling her he had to stay late for a book club meeting. Marissa Benson couldn't object that. The worst part was that now he was stuck alone at school, with no one to comfort him.

"This day can't get any worse."

Fate however, had other things in store for Fredward Benson.

"What are _you_ still doing here?"

Freddie's deceased heart resurrected, beating with the intensity of a drummer from a heavy metal band. There was only one girl's voice he had learned just as well, if not better, than Carly Shay's. _Oh no. Not her. Please God, let it be _anyone_ but her_. Freddie didn't want to, but he had to turn around and face his inquirer sometime. When he did, his fears were confirmed.

Sam Puckett was standing behind him. In his agony, Freddie had forgotten that sixth-grade detention let out at three forty-five as well. And in the blonde's right hand was yet _another_ piece of fried chicken. This last part truly confounded Freddie. How in the world did Sam get fried chicken on her way from the detention room? Briggs inspected every backpack at the beginning of detention, so she could not have stowed it inside beforehand.

The grief-stricken boy wiped the tears from his eyes. Since their first, dysfunctional encounter, Freddie discovered that Sam hated him more than any resident in the tri-county area. Conversely, Freddie discovered that he felt the same way about Sam. Thus, at this moment with her standing in front of him during his darkest hour, he struggled to find the right words. Sam on the other hand experienced no such difficulty.

"You told her, didn't you?" Sam asked. Her tone was accusatory more than anything. Still not knowing what to say, Freddie dabbed at his eyes with the edge of his sleeve. "Dude, I told you not to tell her. I told you that she didn't like you back, and that if _you _told _her_, you were gonna get rejected."

Freddie rubbed the moisture from his eyes. Sam found out about his feelings for Carly almost right away. Humiliating though it was, he hadn't been completely devastated at first. Sam was Carly's best friend after all. Maybe she could help him out one of these days. He had a hard time believing that one of Carly's friends lacked a good side. Besides, didn't everyone have a soft spot for true love? As it turned out, Sam had neither of these things. She first seized the attention of the entire sixth-grade hallway with a loud yell. She then threatened to tell them about Freddie's crush unless Freddie let her burp in his face. Now he had an aversion to both fried chicken and fish tacos.

"I thought you said that just to be mean," Freddie snapped. This only made Sam angry.

"I _did_ say it just to be mean, but that doesn't mean it wasn't true."

Unable to form a response, Freddie resorted to drying his eyes again. He was running out of tears though, so this was becoming less viable of an option. Remembering that other kids would be coming out of detention too, Freddie anxiously glanced down the hall. Thankfully, there was no one in sight.

"What, you're not even going to say anything back?" Freddie wanted to say a lot of things to Sam. He wanted to condemn her for existing, for stuffing a fried chicken leg down his pants, and for being insanely mean to him, especially right now when his world was in tatters. Freddie said none of these things however. He only felt tired.

"I don't feel like arguing today, okay?" he told her in a resigned manner. He released a big sigh. "I just want to go home and forget this whole day ever happened." Freddie had gotten no further than five paces away from Sam when his plan failed, and he broke down into renewed weeping.

A groan rumbled in Sam's throat. "Ugh, you are without a doubt the most pathetic boy I have ever met!"

"Shut up, okay?" Freddie gasped.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Sam muttered to herself. She had lots of plans this afternoon, most of which involved causing some sort of damage to Ms. Briggs' property, and she had not scheduled babysitting some depressed nerd. Going against her better judgment, she grabbed Freddie by his collar and began dragging him with her. "Come on."

"Let me go!" Freddie cried. He thrashed with all his might, but Sam was bigger and stronger than him. "Where are you taking me?"

"To get a smoothie," Sam said. "All this crying is making me nauseous and I need something to settle my stomach. Besides," Sam tossed her bone in a nearby waste container. "I'm out of chicken."

* * *

><p>Freddie sat back in his chair with his arms crossed and nasty look on his face. Normally, when someone made you accompany them somewhere, especially if you were having a bad day, they would pay for you. Sam Puckett, as Freddie was finding out more and more, was no such someone. She not only forced him to pay for both of their drinks, but the one she ordered was the most expensive item on the menu. The limited-time 'Ridgeway Rainbow Beast' was a one hundred and twenty-eight ounce behemoth of a smoothie blended out of every type of fruit the Groovy Smoothie had in stock. It had taken that weird T-bo guy thirty minutes to make it. To top it all off, Sam made Freddie go back to the counter to get it once it was completed.<p>

"What's the matter, don't like smoothies?" Sam set down her monster-sized cup. Upon doing so, the tabletop groaned, dipping down on Sam's end. Freddie had to admit, it was kind of cool.

"My mom says I can't come here," Freddie said. He might as well tell her the truth. She had just witnessed him sobbing like a preschooler; no point in worrying about his pride. "She says if I drink one of these things, I'll get diabetes."

"Your mom's a psychopath!" Sam exclaimed. All the kids in Freddie's class knew this thanks to an interruption one day by a certain parent clutching a pair of underwear.

"Yeah, well your mom is too!" All the kids in Sam's class knew this thanks to an interruption one day by a certain parent wearing _only_ a pair of underwear.

"No argument there," Sam admitted. She took a long, deep draught from her cup. She then fixed Freddie with her twin sapphire gaze. "So what are you going to do now that Carly rejected you? And _don't_ start crying again!"

Freddie shrugged, staring down at the table. "I don't know."

"You should move on," Sam said. Freddie gazed at her questioningly. "Look, I've known her since the third grade, okay? You're not her type, and if you keep pining after her, you're gonna end up being one miserable pre-teen."

"Are you trying to help me?" Sam's eyebrows furrowed, and any sentimentality Freddie felt toward the blonde fled like a startled pigeon.

"No, I'm trying to help Carly. I don't want you blubbering all over her every two seconds, trying to win her over." The hurt expression on Freddie's face caused Sam to soften her tone. "But it's true. You're not doing yourself any favors by holding onto her."

Freddie resumed staring at the table. He chewed over the blonde's words. He played the failed confession over inside his head, embracing all the thoughts and feelings he experienced since that first, crushing blow. Sam could very well be right. Judging from her reaction earlier, Carly certainly didn't seem like Freddie's type. If he didn't let go of his feelings, he could end up reliving this afternoon over and over again. He could cut his losses now and move on to hopefully greener pastures. There were still a lot of other girls at Ridgeway. And yet...

"No," Freddie said. The calm certainty in his voice surprised even himself. He almost wanted to laugh at his unexpected, newfound faith. In his anguish, he had found strength. Or so he thought.

"I'm not giving up." Freddie stared confidently at his blonde nemesis.

In that moment, if Freddie were not so impressed by his own emotional resilience, if he were not so utterly convinced that Sam hated him more than any living organism known to man, he might have caught the hurt look that flitted across Sam's features. For the briefest of flashes, her guard collapsed. It wasn't until years later that this random image popped again in Freddie's head, and that he understood what it meant.

"Maybe she doesn't like me now," Freddie continued. "But it doesn't always have to be like that. If I give up today, I'll never have a chance. I'll never know that if I had held out just a little longer, one day she'd like me back."

"Suit yourself," Sam said. She rose out of her seat. "Just don't come crying to me and expect to be taken out for smoothies again."

"I paid for _both_ of us!"

"Eh, you know what I mean." Sam locked her hands together and stretched high into the air. Freddie got out of his chair too. Sam's underreaction to what he said irked him. He was starting to feel like himself again.

"It was love at first sight!" Freddie insisted. "It _has_ to mean something."

Sam seemed to almost pause at this, but instead just shook her head. "Whatever nubs. Come on, let's bail. If anyone sees me here with you, I'm going to have to move to Yakima."

"Wait, don't you want to finish your..." Freddie trailed off. His mouth hung open. Somehow, during the course of their short discussion, Sam had finished all one hundred and twenty-eight ounces of her Ridgeway Rainbow Beast. Freddie knew that Sam had a voracious appetite, but this had to be some kind of record.

"That answer your question? Now c'mon, let's..."

It was Sam's turn to trail off. She had put one foot forward, and was now frozen in place. She placed a hand on her lower abdomen. "On second thought."

Freddie grinned. "Gotta–"

"So bad!"

Sam dashed toward the restrooms.

* * *

><p>Fifteen minutes later, a very weary Sam exited the girl's bathroom and walked by the table where Fredward Benson was waiting. The bangs hanging over her forehead were moist. She looked like she had just been through a marathon.<p>

"Nice pee?" Freddie was still wearing that smug grin. Sam couldn't even manage the energy to glare at him. Her eyes were dazed, like she had just seen something from another dimension.

"It wouldn't stop," Sam intoned. "It just wouldn't stop. Never... in my entire–"

"Okay, don't want to hear anymore," Freddie said, covering his ears. He watched as the blonde shuffled past him. She was heading toward the exit.

After Sam had opened the door through a combination of blunt force and inertia, once she was standing out on the sidewalk, something peculiar happened. It had been cloudy that entire day, with the promise of thunderstorms later in the evening. Right then however, at that exact moment, a single ray of light pierced through the heart of the cloud layer, and poured down on Samantha Puckett. It illuminated the girl with all its radiance, until her hair became nothing more than a yellow, molten flame. She became so bright, Freddie had to shield his eyes.

"Are you coming?" Sam may have been exhausted, but she was no less impatient. At her behest, Freddie lowered his shield and saw that the fiery vision had vanished. Sam was just Sam again. He shook off the odd illusion and followed her out the door.

"What were you looking at back there?" Sam asked when they had gotten halfway to the Bushwell. This was after Sam had threatened to beat Freddie within an inch of his life if he told anyone about their little therapy session, and after Freddie decided to tell his mom that someone from the book club dropped him off.

"Nothing."

Sam eyed the brown-haired boy out of the corner of her eye. Something unreadable lurked behind those sapphire twins. "You better not fall in love with me too."

Freddie scoffed at this. "Yeah right. Like that'll ever happen."

**Disclaimer - I do not own iCarly, it's characters, nor any other shows, characters, music, and/or movies that may be referenced.**

**AN: Hello my lovelies. Thanks so much for all the reviews! Just so you know, this story will be composed of a series of events/scenes in Freddie and Sam's progressing relationship. Not quite a singular plot-line, but they will definitely build on one another. They'll be in chronological order, and will all lead up to the finale that I will call 'The Thunderbolt.' You'll find out more about what that entails later. And no, I am NOT talking about the Pokemon move, lol!  
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	3. Prophecy

**Prophecy**

The journey from The Groovy Smoothie to the Bushwell took approximately thirty minutes. It was awkward at first, to say the least. Neither Sam nor Freddie had spent any voluntary amount of time around the other before, and here they were, walking to a common destination by themselves. To break the silence, Freddie had begun a rapid-fire discourse about laptops and where the technology was heading. One intimidating glare from Sam put Freddie's techno-babble to rest. After another uncomfortable length of quiet, Sam found that _she_ had to start talking. Following the question about why Freddie had stared at her outside of the Groovy Smoothie, Sam's topic for discussion turned to something they could both relate to. How much they hated Ms. Briggs.

The fact that they managed not to kill one another wasn't what surprised Freddie the most about their little trip. The thing that surprised Freddie the most was that he actually found Sam easy to talk to. Now that they weren't screaming down each other's throats, dare he say it, they got along quite well. He never talked to a girl who wasn't related to him by blood this long before. To a young boy of eleven, for whom the hormonal floodgates of adolescence had yet to swing open, this was quite an accomplishment.

Freddie and Sam stopped outside of the intersection between 8-C and 8-D. Their excursion was over, and somehow both knew that nothing had changed. When they saw each other at school the following morning, they would ignore each other, unless whatever it was that motivated Sam to torment Freddie reared its ugly head. If that scenario arose, Freddie would most certainly fight back, and the world would keep on spinning until their next battle. They came, they saw, they argued.

"Well, see ya," Freddie said. He fished his key (which he remembered this time) out of his pocket and walked toward his door without another word or glance. For a moment, as he rotated his key and heard the _click_, he considering turning around. There was something he wanted to say to Sam. A split-second later, he forgot what he was going to say and simply opened the door and went inside. Had he turned around, he would have seen the ghost of a smile grazing Sam's lips.

Just like Freddie suspected, things went exactly back to the way they were. Sam tortured him, he retaliated, and so on and so forth. He never totally forgot about their private walk after that awful, seminal heartbreak. It become more distant to him however, and with each insult Sam delivered, the memory became blurrier and blurrier.

Freddie got over his first, failed confession. Like Carly had hoped, they remained friends. A few weeks later, he asked her if she would like to go out with him. Just to see how it went; maybe she'd have a good time. Carly declined. Freddie got depressed, bought himself another smoothie, and asked her again in two weeks. She said 'no.' He asked her again two weeks after that. She said 'no.' Another week went by. 'No.' Another week. 'No.' Another week. 'No.' Another week. 'No.'

Each time she shot him down, Freddie shed his tears and got back up. Although his therapy session with Sam was no longer emotionally salient, he still remembered what he had told her. How he would always regret it if one day he found out that he had come this close with Carly, only to throw in the towel. He converted this into his mantra. Winning Carly's heart became a contest. One step at a time. This Prince could wait.

Seasons passed. Time flew or dragged, depending who you asked. Everything remained relatively stagnant, until one day, when some ambitious student doctored the photo of Ms. Briggs onto the body of a rhinoceros.

* * *

><p><em>Two years later...<em>

Sam burst out of the double-doors of the auditorium, a frenzied look on her face. Woe to the unfortunate soul who got in her way. The blonde had just gone an entire four hours without eating. Though an average interval between meals for most people, to Sam Puckett, it might as well have been four days. She anticipated that she could convince Carly to convince Freddie to record everything while the two girls left campus and picked the winners later at random. Carly it so happened disagreed. Shortly thereafter, Sam remembered that she had forgotten to bring snacks. And no one had brought _her_ juice and a bagel. So currently, she was sprinting to her locker to grab whatever she could find and stuff it in her face.

The blonde skidded to a stop in front of her locker. She hastily spun her combination and wrenched the metal door open.

"Praise the fatcake gods!" Sam proclaimed. Indeed, said higher beings had planted two packages of their manna on the uppermost shelf of Sam's locker. The blonde snatched the packages, ripped them open, and like she had planned, stuffed them in her face. It was a sugary, powdery, _fatty_ explosion. Sam had never known greater bliss. Her bliss ended eighteen seconds later. All that remained where the frosted entrails ringing Sam's mouth.

A contented belch.

"Never fear my precious," Sam said, rubbing her belly. "Mama provides."

"What are you _doing_? Get..._off_ me!"

In Sam's haste, she had missed the fact that she was not alone in the hallway. Two others were present. The first was Freddie Benson. He had been the first, of what would later become the iCarly trio, to leave the auditorium. Sam would have beaten him to the punch if it hadn't been for Carly, who requested Sam's immediate input on a couple of the applicants, much to Sam's displeasure. Freddie was in the process of getting his lunch-bag out of his locker. Unlike Sam, he prepared ahead of time for the day, and packed a nutritious meal for the afternoon break. He even packed an extra sandwich, just in case things ran late.

The other person cohabiting the hall with Sam and Freddie was Duke. Duke was a wrestler. Presently, Duke was demonstrating some of his wrestling moves on Freddie.

"Did I make it or not?" Duke demanded. Like many of the other middle-schoolers, Duke was hoping that he landed a spot on the upcoming talent show. Unfortunately for Duke, beating up a volunteer from the audience was not the sort of talent that enmeshed well with school policy, and Freddie had told him that this forced them forfeit his application. Duke, who reportedly had been held back three times, did not understand what forfeit meant. Which was why he was consulting Freddie for a second opinion.

"I _told _you," Freddie gasped, trying to relieve the pressure on his neck caused by Duke's arm. "You can't beat up a volunteer from the audience. That sort of talent does not enmesh well with school policy."

"I don't understand what that means!" Duke wailed. He swung his arm with Freddie's neck squished in between the crook, sending the boy back and forth through the air like a rag-doll.

"It means you didn't make it protein-head!"

Momentarily, Duke stopped throttling Freddie. The two males saw the blonde standing a few locker spaces away from them. Something coated the lower portion of her jaw. Powdered sugar?

"I didn't...I didn't...WHAT DO YOU MEAN I DIDN'T MAKE IT!" Duke resumed shaking Freddie in earnest. The smaller boy shot Sam a desperate look.

"Sam! DO something!"

Sam's gaze was impassive. It wasn't uncommon for Duke to roughhouse Freddie. He was a large boy with significant rage issues, and Freddie made for the perfect victim. An unpopular geeky runt who you could scare so easily, he wouldn't even go to the teacher for help.

"Not my problem kid." Sam began wiping the powdery substance off her jaw and sucking it off her fingers. Freddie stared at her incredulously.

"I'm gonna go practice!" Duke said while he shook Freddie back and forth. "When I get back, I'm going to try out again, and when I do, you better tell Briggs I should be in the show." With one last push and shove, Duke slammed a fist into a nearby locker and shuffled away. Freddie clutched at his neck, grimacing in pain.

"He's real friendly," Sam joked.

"Thanks a lot!" Freddie shouted. He found nothing funny in the matter. "You could have taken that guy apart and you just stood there and watched." Rubbing his neck and groaning, Freddie trudged in the direction of the boy's restroom. He didn't want to look like he had been manhandled.

Duke was on his way to the gymnasium. There, he planned on taking one of the wrestling mats from the storage area and perfecting his moves on it. Knocking someone's teeth out wasn't simply display of brute force, as so many assumed. If you did it well enough, it ascended to the plane of art. That's what he hoped to present at the talent show. The art of destroying someone with your bare hands. That counted as a talent, right?

The beefy wrestler made it as far as the science wing when he got slammed against the lockers.

Duke was a pretty good wrestler. He had fought his fair share of battles, and had been on the receiving end of numerous punishing blows. Dude was experienced. But within the next ten seconds, Duke would sustain the two hardest hits he ever got in his life. The first happened right there and then, when he got slammed against the lockers.

"You touch him again you die!"

Duke met a stone-cold face crowned by messy blonde hair and beset with twin sapphires, the latter of which were burning into him. Duke's own eyes watered in pain as he registered those twin sapphires. They were like staring into the bowels of Hades.

"Y-y-yes Ma'am."

Sam released him. She seemed about ready to take off when she grabbed Duke by the shoulders and slammed him into the lockers again. This was the second of the hardest hits Duke ever received in his life.

"And if you tell anyone about this, well, then you'll die too!"

That being said, Sam took off.

True to his word, Duke never touched Freddie again. Nor did he tell anyone about Sam's threat. He jostled Freddie by accident sometimes, when he was getting a bit too rowdy with one of his wrestling buddies, but a quick glare from Sam, who _always_ seemed to show up during such times, reminded him to cool it. Over the course of the year, Duke would come into somewhat friendly terms with the iCarly gang. One time, he even helped them rescue a lost hatchling.

* * *

><p><em>Five days later...<em>

Sam knew the show was a smash the moment Freddie turned off his camera. It was a home-run. An out of the park galloping victory. When they all crowded around the computer in Carly's kitchen and clicked on the comments showering them with praise, her beliefs were confirmed. iCarly could become famous. _They_, could become famous.

Carly and Freddie didn't notice that Sam had gone off on her own. Carly was too busy speed-talking about all the ideas and things they could try for the show, and Freddie was too busy enjoying every second he could spend with the brunette.

Sam made sure that she was safely hidden from view. The course of the past week flurried through her mind. Before, it just been her and Carly (as well as the scattered delinquents she hung out with when life got boring, but she didn't really count them). Now, now that there was iCarly, it would be her, Carly _and_ Freddie. Two had become three. Her and Freddie would be spending a lot more time together from this point forward. A lot more time together.

* * *

><p><em>Later that night...<em>

The crazy hat party was also a smash. Kids from all floors of the apartment complex, all grades of the Ridgeway school system, and even some out-of-towners, attended. There was a constant stream of bodies flowing into and out of the Shay's loft. One benefit of entertaining Sam Puckett on a regular basis was that you learned to stockpile food and snacks. After all, if the blonde wound herself into a feeding frenzy, you could end up devoid of all things edible within hours. Thus, the Shays were well-prepared to entertain and sustain a large number of people on short notice.

Freddie Benson was standing by himself near the punch bowl, feeling awkward and out of place. The kids were ecstatic over iCarly, but their fervor focused mostly on the two female co-hosts. Freddie soon discovered that no one was particularly interested in the type of camera he used, or how he got the lighting to be just right. The girls wanted to squeal with delight with the newest web sensations, and the boys just wanted to hang out with Carly and Sam, whom the male consensus dubbed as totally hot. iCarly's young tech producer suffered from a lifetime of geekdom. Though this would wear off in time, for now, Freddie was a disaster socially.

"Hey _Ben_son!" Spencer said in a loud, sloppy voice. The artist's forehead and temples were leaking sweat, and his pupils noticeably pointed in different directions. His long fingers wrapped around a large cup of _Wahoo!_ punch. Spencer staggered over toward Freddie and slapped him on the back with his free hand. "Wass shakin' buddy?"

"Uh...nothing." Freddie frowned as Spencer sidled up next to him. The older male clearly had a difficult time keeping his gaze straight ahead. Freddie peered down at his own cup. He drank two servings in the past ten minutes with no problem, other than the fact that he would probably have to go to the bathroom in a bit.

"You been doin' any dancin'?" Spencer asked. He proceeded to do some movements, although Freddie could hardly construe them as dancing.

"Not really," Freddie said. "I'm just hanging out here."

"What about Carly?" Spencer practically screamed. Freddie fingered an ear. "D'you do any dancing with her?"

"No," Freddie replied. He bowed his head, neglecting to tell Spencer that the reason for this was that he asked her to make out with him in the hall. He had been trying to be funny (well, sort of), but Carly just took it as another unwanted move made by a desperate boy. She was surrounded by no less than three guys as of the moment, so any chance Freddie had with her tonight was gone.

"Well get out there!" A large volume of punch spurted out from Spencer's mouth when he had yelled this. He tried lapping up the remains off his chin, but to no avail. Spencer then gestured at the entire room with a sweep of the arm. "Come on, there has to be one chick here who wants to dance with you."

"Someone did ask me," Freddie said. "But it was that Abby girl." Freddie indicated a thin girl sitting Indian-style on the floor. She was eating a large wedge of pie, and although Freddie couldn't be sure of it, she appeared to be wearing a shirt with the number 'pi' inscribed on the front.

"What's wrong with her?"

Freddie knitted his eyebrows together. "She thinks she's psychic. She keeps trying to tell me my fortune, and it's getting on my nerves."

"Ah," Spencer said. "The _weird_ type, huh?"

Freddie couldn't take it anymore.

"Spencer, you realize that stuff has _no _alcohol, right?"

"Hey!" Spencer boomed, nearly taking Freddie's head off in the process. "What about Sam?"

Leaning against the wall, roughly fifteen feet from the front entrance to the loft was Freddie's blonde-headed nightmare herself. She had a grumpy look etched on her face. Freddie remembered that a half-an-hour ago, two boys had asked her and Carly to dance. Those same two boys were now lying unconscious on the hardwood floor in the center of the room. As for Carly, she was so occupied with her new flock of suitors that she hadn't even noticed.

"Yeah right!" Freddie said. "I'd rather dance with Lewbert than bust a move with Sam."

"You have a crush on Lewbert?"

Freddie shot Spencer a glare. The next minute however, he was struggling to free himself as Spencer began pushing him across the room. "Hey! What are you doing? Stop pushing me Spencer!"

"Go on Fredwardo! Have a fun time with your little delinquent friend."

"No! Spencer! I _really_ don't think this is a good idea!"

Spencer paid Freddie no mind as he wove him in between the writhing bodies.

"Spencer! _Spencer!_ Do you want me to die? Look, you see those two boys? See those two boys lying in the center of the room? They're unconscious. That's what's going to happen to me if you push me over there. Spencer! If I die, who's going to tell my mom? Spencer! Spencer! _Spencer_!"

Freddie found himself standing face to face with Sam. The blonde did not look entirely pleased to see him. Freddie tried to turn around and get the heck out of Dodge, but Spencer grabbed him and brought him even closer to Sam, so that they were standing only inches apart. Although Sam stood her ground, Freddie guessed that she didn't like him any better at close-range. The two stared stonily at one another.

"Aww," Spencer said. He placed one hand under Freddie's chin, and one under Sam's, as if they were toys. Spencer first played with Freddie's chin. "Does wittle Fweddie wike Sam?" He then nudged Sam. "Does wittle Sam wike Fweddie?" Now back to Freddie. "Does wittle–"

Spencer promptly collapsed face-first on the floor. A puddle of saliva pooled under his mouth, accompanied by inebriated snoring. The two teens withdrew their gazes from one another to peer down at the fallen artist. They eventually returned their attention to each other.

"He deserved that," Freddie said.

Sam snorted. "You're not kidding."

The future friends stood next to each other in awkward silence. Freddie fidgeted on his feet.

"So are you having fun?" Freddie asked. Sam stared at her sneakers.

"No." A pause. "You?" Freddie averted his gaze.

"No."

Another awkward silence. This time, Sam broke the ice.

"I hate parties," she said. An interesting statement coming from the blonde, considering how she would one day claim that she "loved to party." Freddie thought he understood what Sam meant by this. Sam meant that she hated the people who came to parties, or perhaps the way people acted at parties.

"Me too," Freddie said.

"I know, right?" Sam gestured at the room as a whole. "None of these people would normally act like this around each other. But when it's a party, everyone pretends that they like one another and then the next day, they go right back to ignoring each other."

"I don't know," Freddie said. "They seem to be pretty fine ignoring me right now."

"That's cause you're a dork."

Freddie let out a frustrated sigh. "You know, if we're going to be doing iCarly together, we should at least try to get along."

Sam gazed at Freddie. The tech producer braced himself for what assuredly be a stinging comeback from his blonde nemesis. But Sam kept staring at him. As this went on, it dawned on Freddie that her facial expression was slowly changing. It was like something had occurred to her, and so she kept eying him, frozen in thought. For some reason, it gave Freddie goosebumps.

"You're right, let's get out of here," Sam said. She grabbed Freddie by the shoulders and, like Spencer before her, starting pushing him across the floor.

"What are you – Sam...I am NOT a tire!"

Sam released Freddie and rounded on him. "Look, neither of us are having fun at this party, right? So let's get out of here."

"Where are we going to go?"

Sam looked in the direction of the stairs, leading up to the second and third floors. "To the studio." She tapped Freddie on the chest with the back of her fingers. "Come on, let's go."

"But..." Freddie gesticulated at Carly. Sam just shook her head.

"Carly's having fun right now. C'mon, race you there!"

Sam bolted over to the base of the staircase and began dashing up them. Freddie ran after her. He had almost made it to the first step when something stopped him. Some_one_, actually. A set of hands held him lightly by the arms. Abby.

Something was wrong. Though a bit of an odd girl, Abby was always friendly and easygoing. Truthfully, she didn't bother Freddie that much; she had just twinged his nerves tonight since he wanted to spend the evening with Carly so badly. The wrongness that Freddie sensed originated in Abby's eyes. They were distant and dazed and shone with something...otherworldly. They had been fixed on the receding form of Sam, who vanished up the steps, and then shifted downward to Freddie. The boy nearly jumped when Abby clapped a hand over his chest.

"One year from now, your heart will be wounded by a thunderbolt."

Although Freddie could still hear the music, conversation, and normal ambient sounds, something about Abby's eyes, voice and whole approach was anything but normal. He lost the feeling in his limbs. He couldn't move.

"It is not the physical kind. You will fail to recognize it." Abby pressed her palm against Freddie's chest. "It begins in the heart. And it will start to grow."

"Benson, are you coming or what?"

Slowly, very slowly, the gears in Freddie's head started to turn again. His muscles, which had been placed under arrest, stirred back to life. The odd lights gleaming from Abby's eyes shone a few seconds longer, then stuttered, then disappeared. The girl became herself again. She smiled at Freddie.

"Oh, hey Freddie. So, d'you want to dance after all?"

Freddie gradually backed away. "I uh, m-maybe some other time Abby. I...h-have to go."

Freddie raced up the stairs after Sam.

"Hey, do you want to hear your fortune?"

The Benson boy did not reply. As he charged up the steps, it occurred to him that the kind of 'thunderbolt' Abby had mentioned might be a metaphorical one. Like when people said that "lightning could strike." That someone would come into your life and you would fall hopelessly in love with them. But he already had been zapped head-over-heels with Carly. Everyone in Ridgeway knew that by now. Thinking that perhaps there _was_ something in the punch, Freddie dismissed the notion and went to join Sam.

**Disclaimer - I do not own iCarly, it's characters, nor any other shows, characters, music, and/or movies that may be referenced.**


	4. Best Frenemies

**Best Frenemies**

Years later, when Freddie looked back on it, he would have to admit that there were several turning points. If you thought about it hard enough, you could argue that they were all in fact turning points. The first meeting in front of 8-C. The brief discussion at the Groovy Smoothie. Spencer's inexplicable, fruit punch-induced drunkenness, which spurred them into leaving the party. Personally however, Freddie felt that spending the remainder of the night and early morning hours together was one of the most important ones.

"Holy chiz!" Freddie howled. He and Sam were reclining on beanbag chairs in the middle of the studio. Freddie was laughing so hard, tears popped out of the corners of his eyes. "So what did Briggs do next?"

Sam was nearly laughing as hard as Freddie. "She said that if I ever told anyone what I saw, she'd expel me!"

Freddie jabbed a finger at Sam. "That's why she got so mad. When Carly mentioned it during the break in the auditions, Briggs thought you told her."

"That's the best part!" Sam exclaimed. "I never said a word to Carly."

"So did she say anything to–"

"Wait, wait!" Sam gasped. She slammed her fist against her thigh, devoid of breath, unable to talk. "So..." Sam had to cough a couple of times before continuing. "So the next day...the next day Briggs called Carly into her office and she...she asked her..." Tears gushed down Sam's cheeks. "She asked her if I told her she stuffed waffle cones in her bra!"

Freddie clapped his hands, rolling backward in his seat. "So Carly didn't even know in the first place?"

"No! And Briggs just came out and told her point blank!"

This sent the two teens reeling into fits of hysterics. Freddie thought it was quite possibly the funniest thing he ever heard. Who would have thought Ms. Briggs _actually_ stuffed her bra with waffle cones? That Sam would unintentionally catch her doing it in her office one day, that Briggs would unintentionally spill the beans to Carly, and that now, her dark and dirty secret was in the hands of the three iCarly kids with the largest fanbase in Seattle. With one sentence during a webcast, they could destroy Ms. Briggs' social life forever.

"Oh man," Freddie said. He let out a few more chuckles, then dried his eyes. "That's pretty funny."

"I know," Sam said. "Figures Mr. Howard would have an affair with her."

"Ugh." Freddie made a face and clutched his stomach. "That's so gross. How can he _want_ to have an affair with her?"

"Hey, if you watch channels devoted to math, I bet anything starts looking good to you after a while."

Freddie eyes grew huge. "I wonder what his wife is like?"

"That'd be hilarious if she's like a model."

"And he still hates her."

The two cackled at this. Even if they did have the power to torment Ms. Briggs and Mr. Howard over the web, they would surely get expelled once the school found out. They could harass them however as much as they wanted to, here in the safe confines of the studio.

As Freddie wiped off the leftover moisture from his face, Sam sprung to her feet. She was staring at Freddie's tech-cart, a big smile on her face and excitement gleaming off her posture. An idea brewed in her head. "Hey, turn on your camera."

"What?" Freddie glanced over at the cart. He realized that his camera was still mounted on top.

"Come on," Sam said. She trotted over to the piece of equipment. "I want to shoot this. You'll be Howard and I'll be Briggs."

Freddie stumbled off his bag and went after the blonde, grinning at first but then sobering. "There's _no_ way we can put this on iCarly. We'll get in so much trouble."

"We're not putting it on iCarly fudgebag," Sam said. "I just want to record it." She pointed frantically at the camera. "Now hurry up, work your techno magic."

"Alright, alright!" Freddie bent over the device. He powered it up, temporarily adjusting a few of the settings. He peered through the lens. Finally, he recorded a sample video. When he was satisfied, he set it on standby.

"Okay!" Sam said. "Uhhh...oh!" She spotted several boxes of props resting near the far wall, which they had brought up from the basement before the show. It was their first webcast and they had wanted to be ready for anything. Sam jogged toward a box in the middle with Freddie on her heels.

"Here's one for you." Sam handed Freddie a bald cap. "Aaaand here's mine." Sam pulled out a red clown wig. The wig was redder and poofier than Brigg's hair, but it would serve it's purpose all the same. The two returned to the recording area.

"Wait," Sam said with a giggle. She hurried back to the boxes, this time choosing the rightmost one, and stuck her hand inside. Freddie frowned when he saw Sam withdraw two party hats. He then lost his oxygen when he saw Sam stuff the hats under her shirt. The blonde now had boobs that could impress as well as impale any lover.

"We've got to show this to Carly," Freddie said while Sam rejoined him in front of the camera.

"Start it," Sam prodded eagerly. Freddie hustled to the camera. He tapped the record button, made sure it was working, and sprinted back to Sam.

At the beginning, the two didn't know where to start. They just kept staring at each other and laughing. Sam suddenly pounded her sharp chest, making Freddie laugh even harder.

"How you like 'em Howie?" Sam said in an purposefully horrible rendition of Ms. Brigg's voice. "Got 'em done, just for you."

Trying not to crack up, Freddie straightened his back and deepened his voice. "Yeah! You know I like big pointy boobs!"

Sam nearly cried. Surprisingly, Freddie's version of Mr. Howard was really good. "So do they..." She almost lost it. "Do they make your...compass stick out?"

Freddie's facial muscles contorted so tightly, he thought they might burst. He quickly recovered. "Yes! You've got me at a forty-five degree angle."

Sam squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them. "You want to do long division with me?"

As he fought his own laughter, Freddie's heart raced nervously. He had never exchanged jokes anywhere near this dirty with someone before, but with Sam, they seemed to just flow out. "Okay. But be careful with those things. They might kill me."

"Alright," Sam said. "As soon as your...binomials are ready we'll get started."

Freddie and Sam collapsed on the floor, succumbing to their building hysteria at last.

* * *

><p>"So how long has that Abby girl lived here?"<p>

Sam and Freddie were lying down once again on the beanbag chairs. After a series of increasingly bizarre skits featuring Ms. Briggs, Mr. Howard, and eventually a rhinoceros, they activated the projector screen and watched each recorded sequence from the beginning. Some time afterward, they snuck downstairs, intent on swiping some of the snacks from the party. They were surprised to find that the party had long since ended, and that Carly and Spencer were already fast asleep in their beds. Not ready to hit the hay themselves, they hoarded as many of the leftover goodies as they could carry and returned to the studio.

"I dunno," Sam said. Freddie had posed the question to her since she had known the Bushwell before him. Her brows furrowed. "Why, did she say something to you?"

_'One year from now, your heart will be wounded by a thunderbolt.'_

Freddie shook his head. "No." He then wondered why Sam would ask such a question in the first place. "Wait, has she ever said anything weird to _you_?"

Sam shrugged. "She said that most people got struck by Cupid's arrow. In my case, she said I'd be impaled on it." The blonde laughed at this. She didn't take what Abby said very seriously. "That was back in the fifth grade. I don't know, I kind of like her but I really wouldn't listen to anything she tells you."

Freddie tried not to show it when he breathed a sigh of relief. At the time, Abby's revelation seemed so foreboding and...real. Now that he listened to Sam, he realized how ridiculous it really was. No complaints here. He'd be perfectly happy to forget all about it.

"So what's the deal with your mom?" Sam asked. A plate of meatballs laid on her stomach. Every so often, she popped one of the spherical objects in her mouth.

"You mean other than the fact that she's a raging psychopath?"

"I know, but, _why's _she like that?" Sam said impatiently. Freddie took a sip of his Peppy Cola.

"Well, her psychiatrist says she has generalized anxiety disorder. She's always been like that, but..." Freddie paused. He studied the can in his hand. "She got worse after my dad died."

Sam went quiet for a bit. "What happened?"

"He got hit by a taco truck?"

For one, awful instant, Sam had the urge to laugh. A taco truck? But even she wouldn't dare make fun of Freddie for a thing like that. When she looked at Freddie, she noticed a twitching on his upper lip. Worried at first that he might cry, the twitching in Freddie's lip increased, and several seconds later Sam couldn't tell whether he was going to start crying or laughing. It ended up being the latter.

Sam didn't know what to do. Should she laugh along as well, or would that be in poor taste? Freddie's own laughter escalated, and she soon found that whether she liked it or not, it was contagious. Sam soon joined Freddie in a raucous chorus.

"Dude, I'm so...sorry!" Sam insisted, trying to apologize.

"It's okay, it's okay," Freddie said.

"Who gets hit by a taco truck?"

"The reason why I'm laughing," Freddie said. He hushed down the best he could. "This is awful, you're going to think I'm _such_ a bad person."

"Dude, c'mon." Sam gestured at herself. "Look who you're talking to."

Freddie rubbed a hand down his face. "This is _so_ bad but the thing is...I don't even miss him."

The laughter subsided. The two became quieter now, though not uncomfortably so. "He was never home and...he always used to call me Fredmund."

Sam snorted. "I don't even know who my dad was," she said nonchalantly. Either it was the way she said it, or the fact that it was nearly three in the morning and they were getting slap-happy, but Sam and Freddie both guffawed at this as well. It wasn't that shocking, given what they knew about Pam Puckett.

"You don't really hate your dad though, do you," Sam said. It wasn't a question. She gazed at Freddie, who stared down at his Peppy Cola can once more.

"No," Freddie said, somewhat reluctantly. "Not really."

"Yeah, me neither. I just wish I knew who mine was."

Freddie smiled to himself. "We're pretty messed up, huh?"

"Yeah. Two peas in a crooked pod."

This statement struck Freddie. He peered at the blonde, as if seeing her in a different light. Only her profile was visible to him. "Then why aren't we friends?"

"I don't know," Sam said, smiling in spite of herself. "We've always hated each other. It'd be weird, you know. You're a dork and...I'm a demon."

"That's stupid," Freddie said.

"It's the way it is. I may wake up in the morning and feel like _killing_ you." Freddie grinned. "Look, we're getting along right now alright? Let's just ride it while it lasts."

"Alright," Freddie said. He got up off the beanbag and rose to his feet. "Then we'll be best frenemies."

Sam's eyebrow slid upward. "Frenemies?" She had never heard the term before.

"Yeah, you know. We'll hate each other just like we always have, but buried deep inside under all that will be a thin layer of friendship." Freddie stuck out his hand. He obviously expected Sam to shake it. Sam got to her feet to stand toe-to-toe with Freddie. Both knew that Freddie had offered to shake on things a million times in the past, only to have Sam violate the sealing somehow. Holding his hand out like that took some guts.

"Frenemies?" Freddie said. He braced himself, wondering what disgusting act Sam would conjure up this time. The blonde simply smiled and took his hand. She pumped it once.

"Frenemies," she said. The two let go of each other. They were tired, and knew that their unusual night together was bound to end sometime. Freddie and Sam now felt self-conscious for some reason.

"Wanna go to bed?" Freddie asked.

"Actually..." Sam's features were screwed in concentration. A smile slowly grew on them. The blonde glanced over at his camera a final time. "I have an idea for one last segment. And I think we can put this one on iCarly."

"Really? What is it?"

* * *

><p>'Wake up Spencer' set a record for the most-watched video on the iCarly website, a record that lasted for roughly eight months. Spencer, who in those early days so frequently praised his younger sister for being a web-star, never realized that he was one himself. Freddie and Sam eagerly shot more videos of them torturing Spencer during the wee hours of the morning. One fan commented, "I like seeing Sam and Freddie interact. They should do more videos, they're so funny together."<p>

Just like before, following that little therapy session at the Groovy Smoothie, things went back to they way they were between Sam and Freddie. When everyone woke up at one o'clock that Sunday afternoon to a pancake breakfast from Spencer (who felt like he hadn't slept at all), Sam squirted Freddie in the eye with maple syrup. Freddie responded by calling Sam a dirty blonde, and Sam chased the one-eyed Freddie through all three floors of the loft, threatening to remove his dingo. They came, they saw, they argued. The world kept spinning until their next battle.

High up above, where eyes cannot see, the thunderbolt loomed.

**Disclaimer - I do not own iCarly, it's characters, nor any other shows, characters, music, and/or movies that may be referenced.**


	5. Quid pro quo

**Quid pro quo**

_A few months later..._

After her feigned seduction of Freddie and disastrous attempt at running her own web show, Valerie had the nerve to show up to school the next day. Freddie hadn't become quite as popular by this point, and only a handful of students tuned in to watch Valerie humiliate herself, but word managed to get out and a few of her classmates shot some well-aimed digs at her. All in all however, it could have gone a lot worse. By lunch period, Valerie was walking the halls of Ridgeway with her head held high and ego intact.

Freddie was the first of the iCarly trio to run into her, though it certainly wasn't on purpose.

"Oh," Valerie said when she saw the tech producer. It was several minutes after fourth period. They both had lunch next, and had dawdled at their respective lockers. As such, they were the only students in the hall, and ignoring each other was somewhat difficult.

"It's you," Valerie continued. She had not taken the news of Freddie's desire to break up with her very well. After trying to convince him that she didn't have ulterior motives, she eventually admitted it, and as a last resort she tried to get Freddie to persuade Sam to join them. When Freddie finally left her, Valerie's voice had become hoarse from shouting.

"Like seeing you brightens up my day," Freddie said. A year ago, if someone intimidated him he wouldn't have known what to say. One of the benefits of Freddie's growing relationship with Sam was that it improved his defense skills.

"Whatever," Valerie replied in a tired tone. "I forgot something in my locker. Don't bother me again."

Freddie had to get in one last jibe before leaving for the cafeteria. "I caught your webshow last night. Not bad for a first try."

"Isn't it sad that you _actually_ thought I liked you?" Freddie quickly shut up. "I mean, you completely fell for it." Valerie smirked at the crestfallen boy. "What one girl knows every girl knows Benson. Believe me, no one at this school has a crush on you."

Sending one last leer at Freddie, Valerie turned and walked away.

"That's what you think!" Freddie called after her. A lame comeback, but he couldn't think of anything else. Freddie left in the opposite direction. Maybe he was better off ignoring his enemies after all, just like his mother suggested. Not that it made him feel any better. His old flame had delivered a pretty low blow.

_That was easier than I thought,_ Valerie mused. Even she had to admit, her day was going better than anticipated. Benson had no backbone anyway. No wonder Sam loved to harass him.

As irony had it, Valerie found Sam waiting at her locker. The blonde had her arms crossed, a grin plastered across her features. She resembled a bounty hunter that had finally caught its target.

"Hiya Val," Sam said. She used her shoulder blades to propel herself off of Valerie's locker, and toward its owner. Her sarcastic grin widened. "I uh, hear you're a webstar now."

"Get lost Puckett," Valerie said. She tried walking past Sam. "I don't have time to speak to you."

Sam blocked Valerie's passage with her right arm. The blonde laughed, as if she someone had just uttered a bad joke. "You don't think you're getting off that easy, do you?"

Valerie pushed against Sam's arm, but the limb wouldn't budge. She glared at the blonde. "Don't blame me Sam. Freddie didn't even see it coming. It's not my fault he couldn't figure it out, or that you couldn't convince him to confront me until the very end. Besides, why would he listen to you anyway; you hate him." Valerie inspected the blonde more closely. A thin sheet of comprehension lighted her eyes. "Unless...you don't hate him as much as you want people to think."

Sam smiled at Valerie like an assassin. The blonde cracked her knuckles. "Let me respond to that question in the following way."

"Sam. Valerie. That's enough."

Ted Franklin, who had been passing through on his way to the vending machines for a snack, stared down firmly at the two girls. He was right behind them, and from the grim set in his jaw, he had heard the majority of the exchange.

"Whoops," Valerie said. "I guess I didn't forget something at my locker after all." She glanced up at Principal Franklin and smiled sweetly. "Thanks for stopping her Principal Franklin. I hope you have a nice day." Without a smidgen of regret, Valerie started ambling away. As she went by Sam, she said in a low tone so only the blonde could hear: "How're you going to beat me up now?"

Valerie disappeared down the hall. Distracted from Sam for the time being, Principal Franklin frowned at the girl's dwindling form until it vanished.

"Beat you up?" Sam said in her own hushed whisper. "Honey, I'm gonna destroy you." Sam didn't acknowledge Principal Franklin when she strode away. She had learned over the years that engaging school officials usually panned out badly for her.

Ted frowned at the receding form of Sam as well. Like with Valerie, he knew that there was more to the girl than met the eye. The thing was, everything about Sam's body language during that exchange puzzled him. Ted knew of the legendary frenemy-ship between Samantha Puckett and Fredward Benson. He had also gotten his doctorate in psychology, and had spent the majority of his thesis focusing on nonverbal communication. This training was partly the reason why he was one of the few adults that could at least _communicate_ with the blonde. But if he had been reading Sam correctly just now...

Principal Franklin shook his head. It had been a busy day thus far and his senses felt blunted. For a moment back there, he thought he saw a resemblance between the way Sam looked when she talked about Freddie, and the way Marissa Benson looked when she talked about Freddie. Like someone who was fiercely protective over the boy.

* * *

><p>Shortly thereafter, Valerie was plagued by a seemingly never-ending streak of bad luck. One day in the locker rooms, she discovered that someone had cut holes in her Phys. Ed. shirt in two strategic locations. A rumor started spreading through the school that she had a massive crush on Gibby. Whenever she tried confronting the shirtless boy about it and informing him that it wasn't true, Gibby called her a "skunkbag" and told her that he was holding out for someone of "higher class." Sometime after this, Ms. Briggs called Valerie into her office. Briggs wanted to know why there was a photo sitting on her desk of Ms. Briggs' face doctored onto the body of hippopotamus, with the written inscription of: "This is you in ten years. If you live that long. Love, Valerie."<p>

Not long afterward, Valerie withdrew her enrollment from Ridgeway and started attending a private school. Before that however, Ms. Briggs had shown the inscription on the photodocked picture to Principal Franklin. Briggs had also shown him a writing sample from Sam Puckett (an obscenity filled rant) for reference.

"What do you think Ted?" Briggs asked. She glanced at her superior. "I thought it was Valerie at first, but then I started thinking and whipped this out. See a resemblance, or are my eyes just playing tricks on me?"

The handwriting was undeniably similar.

Ted, like any good principal, knew the gossip flapping around his school. That Valerie had beguiled Freddie Benson in an attempt to steal him from iCarly, and that she had gotten off almost scot-free. Now, it appeared someone was making her pay for it. Despite the school's and the student body's best efforts however, no one could identify the culprit. Ted had enough experience to know the truths from the falsehoods. This one was not a falsehood.

"No Francine," Ted said. "I don't see a resemblance." He already knew the answer to his next question, but he asked it anyway. "And you said the handwriting didn't match Valerie's, correct?"

Briggs nodded her head.

"It may have been someone else then. I'll look into it personally. Please leave the photo on my desk."

When Ms. Briggs left his office, Principal Franklin sagged in his seat and sighed. He knew he shouldn't have done that. It violated every protocol of ethics he had been taught. But doggone it, every time he saw the blonde within an arm's throw of Valerie (or that other boy, the wrestler who used to bully Freddie, what was his name...Duke?), he kept seeing that protective quality in her body language.

"That is very interesting," Ted said to himself.

* * *

><p><em>A few months after that...<em>

Sam was throwing a tennis ball against the walls of the studio, lying in wait, and catching it upon the pale green, spherical object's return. They had taken Jonah off the wedgie-bounce over an hour ago and had given him a coupon to the local drugstore. The coupon was a buy-one-get-one free for extra large lotion. They neglected to tell him that the coupon had passed its expiration date.

Carly decided to make a run at the Groovy Smoothie when the whole Jonah business subsided. Normally, she wouldn't have let Sam stay unsupervised in the loft, but under the circumstances she allowed it. She didn't have the heart to kick out her friend after she had been mistreated by a jerk. Sam said she wanted to stay behind, and insisted that she was alright. No two-timing schmuck could make her miserable.

Freddie had followed Carly out the door like an eager kitten. Clearly, he saw his chance for some alone time with the brunette. At least, that's what Sam thought until the elevator door opened and Freddie came walking out.

"What are you doing here Fredfish?" Sam asked. She chucked the ball hard at the wall and caught it on the rebound. "I thought you were going to get smoothies with Carly."

"I had a stomachache," Freddie said innocently. It was an obvious lie that didn't fool Sam for a minute.

"Yeah, and Lewbert wears clean underwear." She glanced at the boy. "Why are you really here?"

Freddie stepped closer to Sam. When the blonde's tennis ball bounced off the wall, he made a grab for it, hoping he could smoothly intercept it and capture Sam's attention. The hand-eye coordination learned in video games however does not extend to real-life applications. Freddie only ended up knocking the ball off course. It rolled toward the window of the studio, the farthest distance away it could get. He exhaled his frustration.

"Look, I don't care what you told Carly, I _know_ you're not okay!"

Sam rounded on the boy. "Look Benson, if I want your help, I'll ask for it!"

"How hard is it for you just to admit that someone took advantage of you and you're peeved off about it?"

"You didn't answer my question, why are you here?"

"Cause..." Freddie swung a fist at the air. He didn't want to be here. He had wanted to go to the Groovy Smoothie with Carly. But the guilt was eating him up alive. "Cause I helped set you up with Jonah, okay?"

Sam leveled her gaze at Freddie. The news failed to shock her, which surprised Freddie. She didn't reach out and slug him either, which also surprised Freddie. The Benson boy noticed however that the blonde's gaze had not become any friendlier.

"I helped set you up. Carly asked for me to talk to Jonah about you, and...and so I did."

"So," Sam said. She shifted her glare away. "You didn't know he was a fleabag," she mumbled.

"I feel _so_ bad," Freddie said.

"Then _don't_!" Sam exclaimed. She had her hands clenched into fists. Letting out an exasperated groan, Sam stalked off.

"Wait!"

Sam growled like a grizzly bear at Freddie. Any moment now, she could grab hold of him and give him a wedgie that would make Jonah's look like nothing. Freddie gulped. His guilt could only take him so far, and already he felt his resolve waning.

"I am fine," Sam said in a slow and deadly voice. "Do no bother me."

"Well," Freddie began. _Here goes nothing_. "You certainly bothered that wall."

Sam peered at the wall against which she had been hurling her tennis ball. Numerous dents were hammered into the surface. Nothing that Spencer couldn't fix, but enough to earn her a scolding from Carly. This irritated her even further.

"You know," Freddie said, holding his hands out to defend himself against the pending eruption. "What you need is some fresh air and a change of scenery. I know just the place, come on."

The blonde had gone so deep into rage, she became immobile. Freddie sensed his opportunity. He seized her by the wrist and dragged her out of the studio.

* * *

><p>By the time they made it to their destination, Sam had calmed down enough to begin moving again. Her first act was to rip free of Freddie's grasp and put several paces between the two of them. When Freddie analyzed her, he spotted an emotion he had never seen on his old adversary. Sadness.<p>

"Ever been on the fire escape before?" Freddie asked. He had proposed this because they were in fact standing on it. From this vantage point, they had a nice view of the city. Freddie always liked it. Two-and-a-half years ago, he had planned on kissing Carly in this spot after a heartfelt discussion. In retrospect, he supposed fire escapes were not very romantic locations.

Sam shook her head in response to Freddie's question. She was still plenty mad, but she didn't feel like talking. Freddie on the other hand did.

"The guy was a jerk Sam! Just forget about him!"

"That's not it," Sam grumbled.

"You're not upset about it?"

"I didn't say _that_."

"Oh, so you admit you were lying before and that you are upset about it."

"WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT BENSON?"

Sam was now angrier than she had been the entire evening thus far. Her eyes blazed at Freddie like two blue flames. Freddie fought to contain himself. He had to speak very carefully from this point forward, or else risk angering her even more.

"I..." He dug furiously for the right words. They had to be spot-on. When he had picked his approach, he relaxed. "Listen, I know we're not...the best of friends."

"Mortal enemies you mean," Sam said.

"And I know that I'm probably not the right person to be talking to you right now, but...even though we hate each other, and argue, and say nasty things all the time...underneath all of that, I still think we're sort of like friends. You know, best frenemies?" Freddie looked delicately at the blonde. She had become frozen again. "I'm just going to ask you this one time, and after that, I won't bother you again I promise." He paused. "What's wrong, and how can I help?"

"You wanna know what's wrong?" Sam screamed. She began pacing to and fro within the fire escape. "For once, just once, I liked someone and I thought they liked me back! And lo and behold, one day I find out that he likes _Carly_, in_stead_!"

When Sam had yelled 'Carly instead,' she gunned those smoldering blue orbs into Freddie like dual flamethrowers. The gaze was so intense, Freddie had to step back. It was too hot to handle. Freddie thought she was trying to tell him something. But every time he attempted to grab hold of it, he had to release it because it burned.

"Don't you understand?" Sam asked in pain-stricken voice. Her incendiary gaze guttered. For the second time in their relationship, her guard lowered in front of Freddie. This time, it was willing.

Freddie didn't understand. It would take him over two years before he could understand. But a solution occurred to him on a subconscious level for how to put out the fire. Before the boy who even knew what was happening, he had his arms around the blonde. And he was squeezing her with all his might.

"Q-quid pro quo," Freddie said when the embrace had broken and he and Sam were left staring at one another. He didn't know what he was saying. It was as if some other intelligence were speaking for him. Terrified, he tried nodding his head reassuringly. "Quid pro quo. It means exchange. I know that...you took care of Valerie for me, so I..." Freddie demonstrated a hugging motion. "I-I did that. For you." Freddie swallowed. "Just..." He let his gaze fall to the floor. "...Don't think I won't protect you either, okay?"

The boy made to go past Sam and into the apartment, but an arm from Sam cut him off. His blood ran cold. Perhaps what he had just done was a mistake.

Relief couldn't describe it when Sam smiled. "You know Benson, you're alright." Her now cool gaze locked with his. "Stupid, but alright." Sam turned around and headed for the opening that led to the Bushwell. She then stopped and looked back. "Don't get me wrong, I still hate you, and I'm sure the same goes for you." Sam suddenly laughed. "But I mean, we're best frenemies. What else would you expect?" With that, the blonde took off.

Freddie stood rooted to the spot for quite a while. What had just transpired churned in his head. _Yep, I've gone crazy. I thought I went crazy after she stuck that chicken leg down my pants, but this time, I've really lost it_.

Freddie glanced around at the fire escape. His lips puckered at his former favorite locale. _I should have never introduced you to her._ He shot a finger warningly at the fire escape before leaving.

Little did he know that his heart would be wounded on that very spot in six short months. Of course, he wouldn't recognize it when it happened.

Freddie entered the hallway. There, he found Sam waiting for him.

"Hey Benson, one more thing."

Freddie shrugged. He lifted his hands. "What?"

Sam walked over to Freddie. She stomped on his foot.

"If you wanna hug Mama, you better ask first!"

**Disclaimer - I do not own iCarly, it's characters, nor any other shows, characters, music, and/or movies that may be referenced.**

**AN: Alright guys, I think you know what's up next. I imagine a lot of people have written about iKiss before, so I'll try and make the next chapter manageable. After that, in my opinion the story will change a little. The pace should pick up a tad, and if things go the way I envision, the story will gradually become more intense. Thank you all for the lovely reviews thus far. Can't express my gratitude enough. I will keep trying my best to deliver.  
><strong>


	6. The Thunderbolt: Part 1

**The Thunderbolt Part One: Freddie's Resolve**

_Six months later..._

Seven seconds. Maybe eight. It didn't happen like one might have expected. Freddie's life did not change right on the spot. The stars did not align, the heavens did not churn, the winds of destiny did not gust fatefully through the night. There was no spark of electricity when lip met lip. No cosmic correlate to signify the kiss's significance. On the other hand, Freddie didn't lurch forward and puke over the side of the fire escape. He didn't lose his grip on reality. He did not realize with horror what he had done and jump over said side, plunging eight stories down to his death. Kissing Sam, the thought of which may have driven him to those latter extremes in the past, elicited no such emotions from him now. Honestly, the only way he could describe it was what he himself had told her. That it was...nice.

_Her lips are really soft_. They tasted slightly like meatballs. Perhaps she had eaten a few from the large bowl she brought with her on the way to the fire escape. Or maybe Freddie's mind was just playing tricks on him.

_And her mouth is kind of small. _Of this, Freddie was quite certain. When he had checked after those first, awkward seconds, when her meatbally lips left his, he verified it. Sam _did_ have a small mouth. He never would have believed it before, considering how large that mouth seemed when insults flurried out of it. This however was just the beginning of the slow-motion shattering of Freddie's conception of Sam.

_I think...I liked it_. _No, I did like it_. That was the conclusion Freddie came to the second Sam turned around. For that instant, his consciousness drifted to a higher plane. It was a strange sort of duality. _I can't believe I kissed Sam. My first one. With my blonde-headed arch-nemesis. And I liked it_.

It happened the second time he glanced at her. When Sam had first lumbered over the ledge and into the hallway, he snuck a peak at her. This first peak could have been anything. A simple reflex most likely. He didn't necessarily want to do it, but he didn't necessarily not want to do it either.

The second time he glanced at her, _that_ time, it was because he wanted to. Some instinctual, deep-seeded part of him had wanted to see her. The long, slightly curly blonde hair. The odd half-girlish, half-boyish style of dress. Even, potentially, the way, her waist thinned toward the top but widened when it melded downward into her hips, bearing the promise of the womanhood to come. This, was when it struck.

"Ahh!"

Freddie's hand clamped over his chest. For a split-second, a sharp pain jolted from underneath. Like someone took a dagger and knifed him in the heart. For a split-second after that, he could have sworn he smelled something burning. For the next several seconds, he slowly became aware of other sensory stimuli.

Oddly, Fredward Benson had remained calm over the past five minutes. He was a lot steadier these days in general, compared to his eighth-grade self. In the next five minutes unfortunately...

"Oh no," Freddie said. He got up off his chair. He cradled his chest again. "I'm having a heart attack!"

In the future, Freddie would look back on this moment and blush painfully with embarrassment. After all, he had only been fourteen, and although he wasn't in phenomenal shape, he was in fairly decent condition. At the present time however, he reacted quite badly. The Benson family neurotic gene kicked into overdrive. Freddie interpreted the brief stabbing sensation in his chest, as well as the increasing shortness of breath and the tingly feeling in his limbs with an impending sense of doom.

"My body couldn't take it!" Freddie proclaimed. As his blonde friend had done six months prior, he began pacing the fire escape. "All these years I was scared she was going to drive me crazy. I never thought she was going to _kill_ me!" Freddie had to stop to re-work that statement. "I mean, I thought she might kill me on _purpose_ but I never thought she would kill me by way of kiss! Why didn't I think of that before I leaned?"

Freddie rubbed his poor chest. "I'm sorry heart, I confused you didn't I? You were expecting Carly and you got Sam instead. No wonder you're upset."

The Benson boy glared at the starlit sky. In his panic, he had grown angry. "I bet you think this is really funny, don't you? Sure, make Freddie fall in love with Carly and disturb all his boy chemistry, and then, when he least expects it, throw a crazy blonde psychopath in the mix who kisses him and shocks his ticker so bad he dies! Brilliant! It'll win an Oscar for best screenplay!"

Freddie retracted his gaze from the sky. He switched belief systems. "This is all happening because I looked at those websites a while ago, isn't it? It's karma. Okay, I know I shouldn't have done that, but I'm a teenage-boy with the entire Internet at my disposal, and that Gloria's Secret website is really enticing. _Kinda_ difficult!"

The only other option Freddie could think of was classical paganism. He ended up looking at the sky again. Freddie cleared his throat. "Um, oh Zeus, god of the uh...dah...what's your title again? God of the sky? Please don't let me die. I have a lot of computer games left I haven't finished and I don't think killing me is such a good idea."

If Freddie hadn't been so worked up, he may have realized how close he was to the mark. Besides being known as god of the sky, Zeus was also known as the god of thunder. Such an association may have triggered Freddie's memory. In addition to his state of pandemonium however, the self-proclaimed psychic Abby had moved out of the Bushwell within a month following the crazy hat party. That, coupled with Sam's previous derision of Abby's powers, almost wiped her strange prophecy clean out of Freddie's brain.

"Well, I guess I have nothing to lose," Freddie said. He stared down at the ground. "Hades? Uh, I'm sure you don't get very many requests from us upper folk, but I was wondering..."

Freddie's hand returned to his chest. It suddenly dawned on him that the pain had dissipated. In fact, it had only lasted a second. And so far, it hadn't flared up for even the smallest fraction of time. As for the shortness of breath and tingly feeling in his limbs, they were the result of a lack of oxygenated blood-flow. This could be explained by the combination of experiencing his first kiss, and a strong physiological response to that unexpected pain in his chest. Now that Freddie took the time to mull it over...

"What am I doing?" Freddie said. He plopped down in his chair, letting his body go limp from his recent exertion. He put a hand to his head. "I can't believe I'm that stupid. I just had the first kiss of my life. It was with Sam, and the fact that it was kind of nice is kind of weird. It's no surprise that my body's acting all...goofy."

A cool wind blew over Freddie's forehead. He welcomed it. The authenticity, the _normalcy_ of an earthly element like air soothed his nerves. At least something still made sense.

_But I don't know if this ever will_. Freddie still felt a bit confused. He had kissed Sam. And he had liked it. So what did that mean?

_I don't know what it means_. Freddie raked a hand through his hair. They had pledged to go right back to hating each other, but the more he thought about it, the less sense it made. How in the world could they go back to the way things were when their lips had simultaneously lost virginity? Yes, the earth had not trembled beneath their feet, and he was pretty sure that neither of them had fallen madly in love with the other. But could they really go back?

Freddie's train of thought sputtered to a halt when he had thought of him or Sam falling in love. His defenses tightened. _Oh no. You are not going there. That land is off-limits Freddie Benson, you are NOT thinking about that_.

He couldn't help it. He thought about it.

_Okay fine! I guess when you stop to consider it, these kinds of thoughts are perfectly natural, right? Kissing is a romantic activity. And we both shared our first kiss; it's only rational to have a few meandering thoughts about Sam in a romantic sense. I'd never _really_ fall in love with her though. God, it was just a first kiss. We only did it to get it over with. _

Somewhere within his inner core, Freddie knew that last bit wasn't quite true. They had kissed to get it over with. Another part of Freddie however, 'Dark Freddie,' he would call it, had wanted to kiss a girl. Any girl, though he wouldn't mind a good-looking one. And Freddie had to admit, Sam _was_ a good-looking one. This he could admit freely to himself. Part of him, a teeny and very unimportant part, Dark Freddie, had gotten slightly excited when Sam said the words: "that _we_, should kiss?"

_It's okay to admit she's good-looking. That's fine Freddie. But you just can't start thinking about her romantically. First of all, there's no way she'd like you back. Secondly, even if she did, you'd probably end up killing each other before your first-week anniversary. Thirdly..._

Freddie laughed out loud. He had saved the best for last. _Thirdly, you don't like Sam_. He felt pretty confident about this. He did not like his best frenemy any more than just that. As a best frenemy.

"But...what if we're not best frenemies anymore?"

Now that they had kissed, Freddie had a difficult time reconciling the idea of Sam as a sometimes friend/sometimes enemy. Despite their resolve to preserve the status quo, something _had_ changed between them. Figuring out what their relationship had changed _into, _now that was a tough nut to crack.

"This is so confusing." Freddie ran a hand through his hair again. "Why am I even worrying about this? Sam's probably back in front of the camera, thinking about fetching a late-night snack. Now let's review. It was just one kiss, we did it to get it over with, and maybe our relationship has slightly migrated from frenemyship. Neither of us has magically fallen in love with one another. Therefore, is it really that big of a deal?"

The answer to each of those questions was an unequivocal 'yes.'

Freddie slumped in his chair. "I'm doomed." His gaze became distant. "Sam, why did your lips have to be soft? And meatbally? And small? And...nice?"

_Wonder what she thought. What she _really_ thought of it. She's probably in the bathroom right now, barfing her brains out._

"I bet I'm a bad kisser." He sighed.

"Don't say that Freddie."

Freddie fell out of his chair. For several heart-pounding seconds, he thought Sam had returned. The Benson boy was not ready to face the blonde just yet. Not after the turmoil that had recently laid siege to his mind. As he whipped his head around to see the intruder, he saw that it wasn't Sam who had spoken, but Carly. Freddie nearly collapsed at the sight of the brunette. He was running out of emotions.

"Oh my God, are you okay?" Carly bent down to grab Freddie by the arm, but Freddie blundered to his feet on his own.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Freddie said. He dusted off his shirt and pants. Splotches of dirt, as well as an errant leaf or two, had sullied his clothes. Carly stared at him while he did this, the picture of concern.

"I didn't mean to scare you," she said. Guilt lined her voice. "Sam...well...she did something in the middle of the show, and then she said she was going to go talk to you."

"I know. I was watching the–"

"You need to hear this!" Carly wasn't aware that Freddie had watched the show from his laptop. From her protective, big-sister stance, Freddie could tell that she was worried that he was still wallowing in his misery, and that Sam's talk with him had not gone so well. After all, Sam was not the most empathetic of creatures, and perhaps she had only made things worse.

"Sam's never kissed anyone either," Carly blurted. She observed Freddie's reaction, expecting him to go blank-faced with shock.

"I _know_, she told me–"

"No, you're not paying attention!" Carly insisted. "Sam's never kissed anyone! Never. And she said it live on iCarly."

Freddie gritted his teeth. I'm_ not paying attention?_ Nevertheless, he knew a no-win situation when he saw one. In states of emotional upheaval, Carly tended to have a one-track mind, and often paid little attention to what the other person said. Freddie let her rant.

"Sam stopped in the middle of our skit and apologized for telling the viewers you never kissed anyone. Then she told all the kids who have been harassing you to lay off, and _then_, she admitted that she never kissed anyone either. It was unbelievable!"

"Carly, I..." Freddie made one last attempt at setting Carly straight, and explaining that he had seen the show and had already verified all this with Sam. He sighed, finally giving up for good. "You're right. That was a pretty amazing thing to do."

"I know! And when she came back down to the studio, she said she thought she got sick off the meatball props we were using for the show, and was spending the rest of the night in the bathroom."

"Wait," Freddie said. _Oh man, maybe she is barfing her brains out_. "Sam came back to the studio?"

"Yeah, but she barely even talked to me. I tried getting more out of her but she just went to the bathroom and didn't respond."

_Well, at least she wasn't making retching sounds. She probably just needed some time alone, like me._

Carly had paused while Freddie thought this. She stared sympathetically at the boy. "She said she was going to talk to you before she left. Did...something happen? Did she come by?"

_Oh she came by alright_. Freddie acutely remembered that he and Sam had sworn themselves to secrecy, so he couldn't reveal too much. He had to come up with something to tell Carly.

"Y-_yeah_, she came by," he said. He cringed inwardly. He was such a bad liar, no way Carly would buy this. But one surprised glance at the brunette told him that his friend indeed had bought it. Relieved, Freddie went on. "She uh, you know, she came and...told me she was sorry for what she did and..." A clever detail popped in Freddie's head. "_Oh_, and yeah, she did get sick off those meatballs. She offered me one but they smelled kinda funny, so I didn't take it. Next thing I knew, she started grabbing her stomach and was going all, blehhhhhhh." Freddie waved his hands and exaggerated the upset-tummy sounds. "And then she went back inside."

Carly peered at Freddie. She took a moment to let his words sink in. _Please buy it, please buy it, please buy it_.

She bought it. "Oh," Carly said. She pursed her lips. She was still eying Freddie delicately. The Benson boy noticed her small, petite hands resting against the sides of her legs. Every component of her body language reflected utter sympathy.

_No wonder I'm in love with this one. She thinks with her heart. Just like I do_.

"So," Carly began. "You had a nice talk?"

"_Yeah!" _Freddie said. He cleared his throat, willing his voice to return to a normal decibel level and pitch. He forced a tone of sincerity. "Yeah, we had a really nice talk. It was really thoughtful of her to come out and, ki – I mean, you know...talk to me."

"I'm glad," Carly said. The relief on the brunette's face when she heard this was evident. The fracture among the three friends had been healed.

Carly's gaze went to the ground. "You know, I was so mad at her for humiliating you like that. In front of all those people."

_Well, when you put it that way..._

"But I guess in the end, she made things right. She did the right thing."

Freddie nodded. For some reason, talking about Sam with Carly was beginning to make him uncomfortable. He supposed it was due to his recent conflict over he and Sam's changing relationship. That made sense. Eager to change the subject, he opened his mouth but was interrupted again by Carly.

"Listen, I know you're still upset. Even if Sam apologized, I know nothing she said can change the way you're feeling right now."

_Believe me, it was nothing she said_.

"But someday, you're going to get that first kiss."

_Already did_.

"And when you do, all of these negative emotions and pain you feel are going to go away."

_They have. And now, she's replaced them with new ones_.

Carly smiled at Freddie. She put a hand on his shoulder. In it's own way, it was perhaps the most intimate gesture she had ever given him. Eyes falling shyly to the ground once more, Carly withdrew her touch and started to walk away.

"Hey Carly?"

The brunette turned around. Again, she regarded Freddie with that warm smile. "Yeah?"

Freddie grinned. He wanted to let her know this was tongue-in-cheek, but nevertheless, he just had to say it. "I'm still holding out on that kiss from you. You know, something to make my nose jealous."

Carly laughed silently. In that moment, her dark, lusty eyes shined so beautifully, Freddie became lost in them. "We'll see Freddie." She turned away. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

iCarly's tech producer remained seated in his chair for a long time. He thought about a lot of things. Initially, his thoughts gravitated toward Carly. The things she had said, how concerned for him she had appeared, the way the moonlight set her porcelain features aglow. Though he tried to avoid it, inevitably, his thoughts transitioned toward Sam. What kept coming back to him, in little blips and burps, was the notion of a romantic development with the blonde. It was so stupid ('It was just one kiss, just to get it over with,' he told himself for the millionth time), and he knew, he _knew_, that nothing like that had passed between them. But from somewhere in his subconscious, Dark Freddie just wouldn't shut up.

A seed had been planted. A heart had been wounded. And oh boy, how that wound would grow.

"It's just nerves. My mind's making a big deal out of nothing. There's no way I'd fall for Sam. It's not even going to be a challenge." Freddie glanced up at the sky. "D-ya hear that? God, or Zeus, or Buddha or, whoever else is up there? Your little diversion failed. I'm resolving right now not to fall for anyone besides Carly, if it's the last thing I do. In fact, I'm so not worried about it, I'll tie one hand behind my back."

Freddie laughed to himself. He sighed, wiping a hand over the bridge of his nose. "Boy, I really need to get some sleep."

He collected his laptop, fold-up chair, and the other belongings he had assembled on the fire escape during his stake-out, and trudged back to his room. On his trek over, he did have one final thought. One that wasn't sarcastic, or nervous, or heretical. This one was sincere and, perhaps as a result, granted him a little much-needed respite.

_I guess_ _that maybe, after what's happened tonight, Sam and I have just become friends. Even if we don't want to admit it. I mean, how can people kiss and stay enemies?_ Freddie's brain then reminded him of all the people that kissed and then got divorced. He made a firm decision right there and then to push the power button to his mind. He knew he would have a hard time sleeping as it was, and he didn't need anything else fueling the fire.

Freddie would eventually fall asleep. Shortly afterward, the nightmares began.

**Disclaimer - I do not own iCarly, it's characters, nor any other shows, characters, music, and/or movies that may be referenced.**

**AN: Don't worry guys, this story's far from over. Maybe halfway through, give or take? I named this chappie 'The Thunderbolt, blah, blah blah,' 'cause I want to make some kind of connection between it and the future final chapter(s). In my next update, I'm going to try and kick up the heat a little. Freddie's nightmare is going to be a train-wreck, but hopefully in a good way!**

**Oh, and I added the part of Freddie glancing at Sam a second time after the kiss. That was done on purpose, haha.**


	7. My Blonde Headed Nightmare

**My Blonde-Headed Nightmare**

Freddie could sense that something was off by the time he reached his bedroom. He had opened the door to his apartment very carefully, tiptoed down the hall, and, like a thief in the night, slid inside his room. His mother no doubt would have some very choice words for him in the morning for staying out so late, but he supposed she was cutting him a break for now. Mrs. Benson had been deeply worried about Freddie's self-induced social isolation over the past week.

What tipped off Freddie about his approaching malaise was that when he reached his bedroom, he was out of breath. True, he had been carrying an armload of stuff all the way from the fire escape, but he shouldn't have been breathing this hard. He hadn't been when he had set up camp on the fire escape last week.

_I guess I'm just tired_, Freddie rationalized. He had gotten very good at rationalizing over the past several hours. _With everything that's happened, it's no wonder I'm pooped_.

The last thing Freddie put away was his laptop. He set it on his desk, making sure he connected the power plug so it would recharge. Of course, it still had some juice left and he could have waited until morning, but Freddie liked being prepared. It was the sort of thing Sam loved to taunt him about.

_Whoa_. Freddie frowned. Although his room was dark, moonlight filtered in through the window, allowing him to vaguely make out contours and shapes. Under the pale illumination, his surroundings had begun to spin. Freddie held out his right hand where he could see it. He went from having one right hand to two, and then back to one.

_I just need to get some sleep. _The Benson boy had wanted to change into his pajamas, but found the skill and effort required to do so prohibitive. _That's fine, I'll sleep in my clothes. It's okay if I do it, just this once._

He laughed to himself as he crawled onto his bed. He was getting seriously dizzy. Freddie kicked off his right shoe, then his left. He pulled back his comforter, so that he could stick his legs underneath.

_Well, you've learned one thing tonight Freddie_. He drew the covers over the lower half of his body. _No kissing blonde demons...before... ...bedtime._

Freddie was unconscious before his head hit the pillow.

* * *

><p>It started out as one of Freddie's favorite recurring dreams. He was captain of the guard of House Shay. Every member of the guard had sworn an oath to protect the great castle, in addition to its inhabitants, to the very precipice of death. Currently, the castle was under siege. The enemy had struck precisely at the stroke of midnight, and the guard was vastly outnumbered and overwhelmed.<p>

"My lady, you must leave immediately." Freddie of course was talking with the elegant Mistress of House Shay. Lady Carlotta, famed throughout the land for her beauty and high-pitched voice, looked at Freddie with the smoldering eyes of a thousand lifetimes of romance. They were in love, and that was the principal reason they were being invaded.

"No my moon and stars," Lady Carlotta said. "I cannot leave you. The enemy. He's...too ruthless. You know what he'll doooooo!" Carlotta flung herself at Freddie, sobbing against his extremely muscular chest.

"You must leave," Carlotta's moon and stars said. He gently grabbed Carlotta by the wrists and guided her, so that her tear-filled eyes stared up at his. "I would die a hundred deaths before letting him take you."

"Knock-knock, it's party o'clock!"

"Oh no!" Carlotta squeaked in her high-pitched voice. "It's _him_!"

The two lovers were in Carlotta's room. Releasing his Lady, Freddie dashed under an archway, which led to a balcony. From this new position, he had a clear view of the person who had just uttered that dastardly greeting. Sure enough, it was Lord Gibson. High ruler of the neighboring kingdom, and General of the Grand Shirtless Army.

"Ha-ha-ha!" Lord Gibson taunted when he saw Freddie emerge from the balcony. Lord Gibson, as you may have guessed, was not wearing a shirt. Behind him stood a fresh legion of reinforcements. Like their general, they too were topless.

"Happy birthday," chimed several thousand Guppies. They appeared friendly enough, but Freddie knew how dangerous they were in close combat.

"Quiet you," Lord Gibson ordered his subordinates. The warlord then leered up at Freddie. He threw back his long, red cape and formed a menacing fist with his right hand. "Captain Fredward." Gibson chuckled here. "If you can _call_ that a name. Ha-ha-ha!" Gibson turned around and looked expectantly at his legion.

"Ha-ha-ha," the Guppies said.

"I said quiet!" Gibson snapped. When he glanced back up at Freddie, the lines in Gibson's face softened. Lord Gibson's gaze however remained as hard as stone. "Captain Fredward. House Shay has been overrun by my men. One order from me and they'll reduce the castle to rubble, and Lady Carlotta will at long last be mine!"

"Not as long as life beats within my bosom Lord Gibson!" Freddie shot back. His voice boomed with the solid certainty that could only be born of bottomless love. "If it is my ruin you desire, then my ruin shall have. But know this. Before I meet my demise, I shall take such a bite out of you and your army, that the name Captain Fredward will forever ring throughout the halls of history."

"Ha-ha-ha!" Lord Gibson bellowed. His then added in a more conversational tone: "Actually, that that was kind of poetic. I'm sorta jealous."

"Now if you don't mind," Freddie said. "I shall like to have a final word with Lady Carlotta."

"Sure. Go right ahead."

Captain Fredward withdrew from the balcony. He swept back into Lady Carlotta's chambers, where his love awaited him, riddled with fear yet determined to see his fate through to the bitter end. She was the woman all men aspired to have.

Freddie took one of Carlotta's hands in between both of his own. He stared somberly at the woman. "I'm afraid this is the end of the road for me, my Lady."

"No Captain Fredward!" Carlotta pleaded. Tears brimmed threateningly along her eyelids. "Run away! Save yourself! I care not about the House guard vows; only your safety."

"Mistress, please. I cannot abandon you, House Shay, or our remaining men. As their Captain, I must march headfirst into the jaws of the enemy. And if I meet the Reaper, I shall ring the death knells for all to hear!"

"Oh my moon and stars!" Carlotta buried her head into Freddie's chest (which had somehow grown even more muscular than it was two minutes ago) once more. "What shall I do?"

"You shall bade me farewell...with a kiss." Freddie brought his thumb and index finger to a close around Carlotta's chin. He tipped her head upward with a feather-soft touch.

"Captain Fredward!" Carlotta clasped Freddie's temples between both hands. Her eyes were dark, lusty brown pools. "If it is a kiss you want...then it is a kiss you shall have."

Freddie's heart raced with excitement. As part of the oath, members of the guard had pledged away their right to court Lady Carlotta. The reasoning was to prevent them from any emotional bonds that might hinder their judgment and jeopardize their defensive capabilities. Any man caught kissing Carlotta would be executed publicly. Freddie had respected the law, and during their whirlwind affair had only dared to hug the Mistress, but Carlotta's acceptance of a kiss spoke volumes. Their love was one for the ages.

"Oh Captain Fredward," Carlotta sighed. She spread her lips. She brought Freddie's face closer to hers_. _Freddie's heart pounded. This was it. His lifelong desire at last.

"Captain Fredward?"

Freddie couldn't keep the joy out of his whispered voice.

"Yes, my love?"

Silence. "..._Leeeeeeeaaaaaaaannnnn..."_

The last word came out in a hiss like a serpent's, and in a voice that certainly wasn't Carlotta's. Freddie jerked himself out of Carlotta's grip. For a fraction of a second, he caught a glimpse of blonde hair. The next thing he knew, everything, include his former Lady standing in front of him, started melting like candle wax.

"What's going on?" Freddie wailed. He sounded wavy and dream-like. The great stone walls of the castle melted, what remained of Carlotta's body melted, and even the portion of night sky he could discern through the balcony window melted. It wasn't long before the very floor beneath Freddie's feet melted. That was when he fell.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!"

He hurtled through what had become a black void at an alarming rate. Wind whistled in his ears. It felt hard to breathe. Faster and faster he fell. He could see his arms, legs, and all the usual parts in front of him, but he was completely alone in this black, shapeless hell.

_Flump_. Freddie had landed on something. Something soft. He peered down at whatever supportive mattress has caught him. Hair? Despite the blackness of the void, he could make out his new bed quite clearly, and it was unmistakably composed of hair. Long, curly, _blonde_, hair.

Freddie got the sudden urge to grab the hair in both of his fists. Fortunately he did, because shortly afterward that same hair he was sitting on took off like a rocket.

"Dios mio!" he exclaimed. He shot forward at first, picking up speed the way a jet does as it prepares to lift-off from the runway. Surely enough, once Freddie became convinced he couldn't go any faster, he found himself going up and into the air at an angle. Whereas the wind whistled in his ears upon his fall into the void, it now roared with such an intensity that he could barely hear his own screams of terror.

Freddie's trajectory began taking an increasingly vertical direction. He thought it was his imagination at first, but there was no mistaking the way gravity, whatever its source was in this cavernous void, yanked on his body while he surged upward. It felt like all he could do just to hold onto his fistfuls of hair.

"Hey!" Way up high, Freddie could make out a tiny pinprick of light. As he zoomed upward, Freddie realized that he was headed straight toward this light. His grip strengthened on his hairy, magic carpet. The pinprick of light had become a ring, and was rapidly growing larger. Freddie braced himself. He had to close his eyes. Through his sealed lids, he could feel the growing brightness as he flew toward the ring of light.

"Whoa-whoa-ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh–"

Suddenly, he stopped screaming. Something had changed. Freddie then noticed that gale-force winds no longer assaulted his ears. He could still sense light beyond his shuttered eyelids, but this new intensity of illumination seemed bearable. Slowly, Freddie opened his eyes. And was amazed.

"Wow," he croaked. Stars and planets, of all colors, shapes and sizes, flew past him like billboards on a highway. They were _beautiful_. He focused on a particular orb to his right, which glowed an impossibly deep, blood-red color marbled with ivory clouds. In between the swirl of ivory, he saw the ridges of what must have been a majestic mountain range.

Tears flooded down Freddie's cheeks. As a young boy, he had always wanted to travel the universe. Just like they did in Galaxy Wars. He had never anticipated the sheer wonder and awe of seeing a part of it up close.

"Do you see this Sam?" Freddie asked. He gripped his blonde carpet reassuringly. Deep down in his gut, he knew that for some crazy reason, the hair belonged to his friend. At the sight of such beauty he couldn't help but feel kind of scared, and having any piece of the blonde, in addition to saying her name, comforted him. "The glory of the cosmos. I...never knew."

Without warning, Freddie's hairy transport cut a ninety degree turn. "Hey, what are you doing?" Freddie exclaimed as he fought to hold on. "I was enjoying that!" It took every ounce of willpower Freddie had to force his neck up, so he could see where he was now headed. They were coming in fast on a medium-sized, purple planet. It had no clouds. Something about this, as well as the eerie purplish light emanating from the sphere sent off warning signs to Freddie. His skin crawled. A wave of fear besieged him.

"Hey!" he shouted, pulling on the hair. "I don't like that place Sam. I _really_ don't like it, and I don't want to go there." 'Sam' only picked up speed. "Turn around! Hey, are you listening? Turn around!"

Freddie was helpless while he barreled toward ghastly purple orb. He couldn't explain why the planet filled him with such dread, but it was an intuitive, _obvious_ feeling that climbed from somewhere out of his bones. It flirted with the threshold of pain.

"Take me back, RIGHT NOW! I DON'T WANT TO GO THERE!"

He plunged into the purple planet. The wind returned and howled, so that he felt it all the way down to his eardrums. He had to close his eyes again. That nameless yet instinctual terror was all around him now. He tried to collect more of Sam's golden locks, but found nothing there. His transport had vanished. Freddie's eyes snapped open to verify this. His eyes went the size of dinner plates when he saw a darker, purplish color rising up to meet him. Land. He was about to crash into it.

"Oh man, not good! This is SO not good!"

A hundred feet and falling fast. Now ninety feet. Eight. Seventy. Freddie braced himself for impact. He tucked his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He couldn't take it, he had to close his eyes again. Sixty feet. Fifty feet. Forty feet. He had to open his eyes again. He had to see this through to the end. Thirty feet. Twenty feet. Fifteen feet...and...

And nothing. Freddie's shoes had reached mere inches of the surface, when everything froze. He was levitating off the ground. He looked anxiously at his surroundings. Completely dark, with only the faintest trace of purple. Freddie struggled to get to the ground, but was held loosely in place by some invisible force. He struggled for several minutes before throwing in the towel. That was when he saw it.

Freddie's eyes squinted. A luminous figure stood what may have been miles away. A line formed between Freddie's squinched brows. "...Carly?"

Indeed, it was. Though she must have been enormous to be visible from so far away, from Freddie's perspective she appeared only slightly larger than normal.

"Carly, what are you doing here?"

This glowing image of Carly did not answer. Her gaze was set straight ahead, like she were looking at Freddie, though the tech producer had the distinct impression that she didn't see him. Freddie did not know what to do or say. After all, what could you upon meeting an unearthly spectral version of your one-true love, light-years away from home on some mysterious yet creepy purple planet?

"Well, if you're not Carly, then, who are you?"

Freddie's answer came in the form of a rumble. Though he could not divine the cause at first, he realized that the whole planet was shaking. He glanced at the shining Carly in front of him and saw that she too was shaking. He then noticed something else. Cracks were forming in Carly face, trunk, and limbs. The cracks deepened and became fissures.

Freddie guessed what was going to happen the moment before it did. Carly exploded into a million, tiny pieces, sending particles flying through the air that evaporated long before they could reach Freddie. The shockwave blew in every direction. When he had recovered, Freddie spotted an object behind where Carly been standing, which had been previously obscured. A lone, column of rock. Within seconds of being spotted, the column began to fall.

At the same time, Freddie caught the sound of rock being splintered apart beneath his feet. He tried to get out of the way, but too late. A second column, also composed of rock, erupted out of the ground and took Freddie along with it on a blood-curdling ascent. Freddie laid splayed on his back on top of the rapidly rising structure. Craning his neck to the side, he watched as the first column completed its descent, exploding into oblivion when it connected with the ground, much like the apparition of Carly had. Freddie wanted to cover his ears, but was afraid he'd lose his balance.

As quickly as it had begun, it stopped. The column of rock halted its ascent. Freddie lay still for several seconds, waiting to regain his wits. He was just about to get off his back and sit up straight when the air became filled with a thousand voices.

This time, Freddie covered his ears. He tried to drown out the noise, but found that he couldn't. The voices were all saying words. Some were loud, others soft, some male, some female, and others oddly androgynous. Initially, he could make no sense of it. He gradually caught the gist of some conversations. And monologues.

"Did you see it when it struck? Man, what a wallop. For a second there, I was sure he noticed."

"_One column rises while the other falls."_

"The kid has no idea it even happened. And he won't, at least not for a while anyway."

"_After the fall of the first, it shall explode into nothingness."_

"But it was so _intense_! His soul-juice splattered all over the place! It was the most graphic thing I ever saw."

"_When the second rises, it's height shall dwarf the predecessor."_

"That was nothing. You should have seen the girl's. Cupid didn't just hit her with his arrow. He freaking impaled her!"

"_An army of thunderbolts shall rain down from its peak!"_

"Freddie Benson, this is your mother speaking. Did you put on clean underwear this morning?"

"_And her soul will be poured into yours!"_

"You didn't see the size of that bolt. It was bloody enormous. Kid's gonna fry alive."

"_A STORM IS COMING!"_

"Hey Benson, Dark Freddie here. Go after the blonde one, will ya? Her uh...soul juice was condensed from the same vapor, know what I mean?"

"_A STORM IS COMING!"_

"Well I agree it's going to hurt. But he'll be glad afterward, once he figures out what to do. Only one way to make that wound go away, hehe."

"Hello boys and girls of Radio Ridgeway Land. This is DJ Archilochus with one last announcement before signing off. That's right ladies and gentleman, that thunderstorm all those weather-folk are talking about is in fact coming. A monster storm to shatter the record books. I have here a sample from the Institute's report, and I quote: "It's going to be a vicious storm. A violent storm. The storm of the century." So stay inside tomorrow night all you crazy people, 'cause this one's gonna get ugly."

* * *

><p>The dreams did not occur very often in those early days following the kiss. Once every two weeks. Once every seven days tops. Freddie never remembered them. He would bolt upright in his bed with a startled cry, sweating and breathing heavily, but none the wiser about what had occurred in his dream-world. Sometimes, he would almost have it. A fragment of conversation. A premonition about the weather, though he didn't know when or what. Within a few minutes after waking, any clumsy foothold he had gained had dissipated.<p>

Every morning however, he noticed a slight pain in his chest. Nothing much, just an ache. That too faded within seconds, until Freddie completely forgot about it. He mentioned it to his doctor once during a physical examination, but the doctor said Freddie was in tip-top shape. The Benson boy decided it was nothing to worry about.

**Disclaimer - I do not own iCarly, it's characters, nor any other shows, characters, music, and/or movies that may be referenced.**

**AN: Number 1: I am sick right now and on medication. Number 2: That medication does in fact make me a wee bit silly. Number 3: I conceived the nuts and bolts of this dream BEFORE I took said medication, lol! But there is some structure behind the madness. For now, I guess you guys will just have to tell me whether this chapter totally sucked or was kind of cool. It was a different bit of writing for me, and I enjoyed it, but that doesn't mean it was necessarily good, haha. I'm a gonna keep tryin' you guys, I promise you that!  
><strong>


	8. Friends?

**Friends?**

_Two months later..._

Words appeared on the screen of Freddie's laptop as he clacked away at the keys. Mr. Henning had assigned his ninth grade environmental science classes a two-page report due next week explaining something unique about Ridgeway's weather patterns. Freddie, as he suspected many other students had done, chose the topic of why it was always so cloudy. Kind of a dry subject, but Freddie enjoyed learning and found the answers to the riddle quite intriguing.

Or he would if he could concentrate for more than ten seconds at a time.

Freddie glanced at the upper right-hand corner of the monitor. _9:09pm_. By now, Sam's second official date with Pete should be underway. That is, if the blonde met the guy at the predetermined time which, knowing Sam, would be out of character. Nevertheless, Sam did seem pretty interested in him, so it was very possible that she met him at nine sharp. That Sam would be punctual for some good-looking classmate instead of for Carly, or even him, slightly irritated Freddie.

_Just let it go Freddie, just let it go_. Freddie had tried telling himself this on numerous occasions during the half-hour or so he had been working on Mr. Henning's report. He was sitting on top of his bed, Indian-style, and alone in his room on a Friday night. Carly had gone out with someone as well (Sherman Diddlebuster; that name was even worse than Huebscher_), _giving Freddie the rare Friday night alone. He supposed he should have been ashamed. A teenage boy, completely unaccompanied on a Friday night, doing homework? It was downright criminal! But what Freddie's peers didn't know wouldn't hurt them. Once a dork always a dork, he would console himself with a wry grin. Some things never changed.

_And some things did_. On top of the bed next to his left knee sat Freddie's Pear Phone. He positioned the small, square screen so he only had to crane his neck to check for texts. Sometimes, he would think he heard a buzzing sound, only to peek at his phone and find no evidence of any messages. He would then return his attention to his report until his mind was invaded by yet another stray thought, which occurred with increasing frequency over the past several minutes.

"Melon!" Freddie exclaimed, pounding his leg with his fist. He closed his eyes tightly. _You're not looking at your phone again Freddie. You're going to keep focused, finish this report, and maybe text Gibby and see if he wants to play an online game. You are _not_ looking at that phone._

Freddie looked at the phone. He sighed and put a hand to his head. "Okay, I know Sam's perfectly capable of handling herself. She won the under fifteen division of Most Dangerous Blonde in Seattle. And that Pete guy seems pretty nice. I _wanted_ them to go out."

Freddie removed the hand from his head and began ringing it with his other one. "But if that guy tries anything funny on her, I swear, I'll..."

The Benson boy violently shut his laptop. He hopped off his bed, finding the need to walk along his bedroom floor overwhelming.

Somehow, entirely without his permission, Freddie had grown rather protective of Samantha Puckett. In more than a hugging-her-when-she-was-obviously-upset kind of way. He knew he had ventured into new territory, and supposed that this was a side-effect of having finally become friends with the flaxen-haired spitfire. Truth be told, Freddie was still getting used to it. The idea of them as friends.

He thought about the kiss a lot, a lot more than he would dare tell even his closest confidante. If he had been allowed to tell anyone that is. Every so often, sometimes willingly others times reflexively, he would conjure the sight, touch and taste of kissing Sam on the fire escape. It would hang out in his head for several seconds and then leave. Each instance this occurred, Freddie found himself more convinced that Sam had become his friend.

And sometimes, they behaved like friends too. The other day, while Carly went to the fire department to explain why Ridgeway's latest inferno _wasn't_ Spencer's fault, he and Sam spent over an hour in the studio together working on a skit. Once after school, while Carly again was out, this time explaining to the chief of psychiatry at St. Agony's that Spencer didn't need an evaluation, he and Sam had gone out to the Groovy Smoothie alone. Just the two of them, slurping drinks, arguing, and occasionally just talking. Last weekend, following the conclusion of another 'Wake Up Spencer' segment, they crashed Freddie's kitchen after discovering nothing in Carly's. They made fun of Mrs. Benson's health-nut food until they nearly passed out on the tile floor.

Which was why Freddie had officially dubbed Sam his friend at her birthday party. For all to hear. He had planned on saying it, that word, as he prepared the brief speech in his head beforehand. When it had finally come out, to his ears, it sounded quite normal. Like an afterthought. In his heart however, he knew the significance of saying the word out loud.

But simultaneously, he was still so _confused_. Friends didn't give you wet willies in your ear. Friends didn't bash your brains out with a tennis racket. And friends certainly didn't snatch your ice cream cone whenever the opportunity arose and lick it all over the place just to bug you. Friendship and even best frenemyship were woefully insufficient to paint the picture of Freddie and Sam's relationship. Theirs belonged in a whole different category.

To top it all off, Freddie and Sam still _acted_ like they hated each other. They treated one another in public almost the same way as when they were thirteen. Sometimes, Freddie felt that they even exaggerated their arguments, artificially injecting more heat into them, just to convince themselves that this little charade was genuine. He liked to think that deep down, Sam knew it was all a bluff. That she accepted their relationship as an actual friendship now. But God only knew what whirred behind her bangs-covered forehead.

So Freddie watched his phone. Because although he hadn't completely come to terms yet with what Sam meant to him, he knew one thing. That if for whatever reason Sam needed him tonight, and that if Carly wasn't there, he would be. Friends did that for each other. And if Sam wasn't his friend, at least he had erred on the side of caution and could claim a clean conscience.

"It's all because I kissed her," Freddie told himself. "If I hadn't tasted those meatbally lips, then I wouldn't be in this predicament. I would never have gotten so darned protective. Keep this up Benson, and pretty soon she'll be calling you Dad!"

Perhaps another reason was because Freddie felt guilty. He felt guilty he hadn't stepped in sooner to prevent Sam from carrying on with that ridiculous 'girly' persona. He felt guilty he hadn't encouraged Sam to be _Sam_, being one of the few who knew how unique she was.

Freddie stole one last glance at his Pear Phone. No messages. Growling in frustration, Freddie snatched his phone and hurled it across his room. Fortunately he had the indestructible type of Pear Phone, or else he would have needed to purchase another one. A small dent in the wall was Freddie's only punishment for losing his temper.

"Pine nuts!" Freddie roared. He really hadn't meant to do that. He marched over to retrieve his phone, then began punching in a quick text-message to Gibby. Freddie needed online gaming, and he needed it now.

* * *

><p>A spectacular implosion lit the monitor of Freddie's laptop, followed by a much bigger explosion, and concluding with Nug Nug's death wail. Freddie gritted his teeth as he saw Princess Ablingada throw her arms into the air in a victory pose. Next came the resplendent letters 'LORD GIBSON WINS!,' ensued by the equally unattractive letters 'CAPTAIN FREDWARD LOSES!'<p>

A small chatbox opened in the window from where Freddie played 'Galaxy Wars Battlemania.' Under a series of previous comments, the phrase 'Lord Gibson is typing' appeared.

'I win again Captain Fredward,' Gibby wrote. He added: 'If you can CALL that a name, ha-ha-ha.'

Gibby never made fun of Freddie's name in real life, but for reasons unknown, he thrived on trash-talking via Internet connection. His favorite taunt was degrading Freddie's choice of online name.

'Lap it up Gibby,' Freddie wrote. He smirked, knowing how Gibby hated it when his real name was used while gaming. 'I'm just off tonight and you know it, so enjoy it while you can.'

'Ha-ha-ha,' Gibby wrote. There was a slightly longer pause before his next line appeared. 'Actually, you have a point. What gives? You're usually not even online Friday nights.'

Freddie thought before typing. 'You wouldn't begin to understand. I'm not even sure I do.'

'Do not underestimate the powers of Lord Gibson's perception! Now spill I say. Or I shall unzip your guts with one deft swipe of my laser sword.'

_Very poetic Gibby. _Freddie had to think even longer this time prior to replying. 'Do you remember how during The Empress Strikes Back, when the relationship between the rebel space-cowboy Blaine Nobody and Princess Ablingada begins...changing?'

'Sure. They were worst enemies in the first film, become friends in The Empress Strikes Back, and then lovers in the last one.'

'Let's just focus on The Empress Strikes Back, okay?'

'And then in the last film, everything leads up to that scene. You know, the PG-13 scene?'

'That scene's not applicable Gibby. It's nothing like that.'

'Your mom still doesn't let you watch that part, does she?"

'Gibby!'

'Alright, cool your shoes. So why are you bringing up The Empress Strikes Back_?'_

_'_Because Captain Fredward's situation is sort of similar Blaine's. Sometimes he genuinely thinks he's friends with this...woman who he used to hate. And other times, he's not so sure. He knows it shouldn't be a big deal, but for some reason it is.'

'You're not talking about Sam, are you?'

'GIBBY!'

'Just asking, shoosh. Keep your space helmet on Captain Fredward. If really you want my advice, don't spend too much time thinking about chicks. They'll drive you crazy that way. I learned a long time ago that the only to deal with these things is to just put your mind at ease and play it cool.'

'That doesn't help very much.'

'And you wonder why I have a girlfriend and you don't.'

'You don't have a girlfriend Gibby. I don't believe that for one

Freddie's Pear Phone, which he had reluctantly (yet uncontrollably) placed on his desk next to his laptop, began buzzing. Freddie quickly inspected the phone's display. 'New Text-message from: Sam.'

'Thanks for the help Lord Gibson, but Captain Fredward must depart.'

'Ah, off to meet Princess Ablingada?'

But Freddie had already left, and never saw Gibby's question. When Freddie returned later that night, he didn't pay any attention as he clicked out of the 'Galaxy Wars Battlemania' window and shut down his laptop.

'You're so clueless Captain Fredward.' Roughly seven seconds passed before the next words started appearing. 'On a different note, I haven't seen our sometimes fellow gamer Lady Carlotta in a while. Never would have thought she'd appreciate the gaming arts, but I have to say, a web woman rather tickles my peach.'

* * *

><p>Freddie didn't know what to expect when he entered the Groovy Smoothie. Sam's initial text contained the simple question: 'Where's Carly?' Knowing that she must have already tried contacting the brunette, Freddie reminded Sam that Carly was on a date tonight as well. Sam's second text made Freddie's heart skip a beat: 'I'm bored. Come over to the Groovy Smoothie and entertain me.'<p>

If it had been any other night, chances were that Freddie would have refused. The blonde's idea of entertainment often came at the expense of his self-esteem, and coming within arm's-reach of a bored Sam was like giving matches to a pyro. The niggling shame over not denouncing Sam's 'girly' stage, combined with his protective leanings were what brought Freddie to the Groovy Smoothie.

Freddie halted after entering the establishment. He took a quick scan of the area until he found Sam. She was sitting at a table in the corner, alone. The corners were better for dates since they were quieter, and more conducive to conversation. When Freddie located Sam, he found her staring back at him. Freddie wrinkled his mouth in a sort of half-smile. Sam simply gave him a 'well, come on over,' kind of look.

"Hey," Freddie said when he reached Sam's table. His mouth wrinkled again, this time more smiley. He tapped his fingers on the rimmed, back-end of the chair opposite Sam. Freddie didn't know if the seat was available.

"You can sit down," Sam said, as if this were obvious. She bore into Freddie's puzzled frown. "Pete's gone, no one's sitting there."

"Okay." Freddie pulled back the chair, sat down, and pushed it back in. He folded his hands on the tabletop. "So, what happened?"

"Oh nothing," Sam said. She clutched a large empty cup in her right hand. Her gaze went to the side in an almost somber expression. "Got bored, so I tried to get a hold of Carly. Didn't get any response, and then I got even more bored and I couldn't take it anymore, so I tried contacting you."

"You know that's not what I mean," Freddie said.

"Pete's a giant airhead alright!" Sam exclaimed, throwing her arms out in emphasis. For a brief moment, her face became animated and full of life and color the way Freddie always knew it. It then returned to that dispassionate, somber setting.

"O-kay." As he always did when Sam was distressed, Freddie chose his words carefully. "Wh-what exactly do you mean by that?"

"He's a _giant_ airhead," Sam repeated at a lower volume. "He's incredibly stupid. I actually listened to him talk for the first time this evening and the guy has baseballs for brains."

Freddie couldn't help himself. He tried stifling the chuckles. They came out as coughs at first, and then as full-out cackling. The image of Pete with nothing but a giant baseball for a head popped into Freddie's own noggin, and this struck the tech producer as very hilarious.

"It's not funny," Sam said.

The Benson boy hushed himself up. No matter how comical something seemed to him, laughing in Sam's face while she wasn't laughing along just _begged_ for a beating.

"Sorry," Freddie said, struggling to maintain his composure. "So..." he nearly lost it again. One glare from Sam was enough to sober him. "_How_ exactly is he stupid?"

"He thinks Archilochus is funny!"

Freddie furrowed his brows. "The ancient Greek poet?"

"Yes Benson, the ancient Greek poet. No, I'm talking about the DJ! You know, the guy who does that morning show, Radio Ridgeway Land?"

An incredulous smile burst on Freddie's features. "He thinks _that_ guy's funny? DJ Ark is insane! I hear he has like the worst ratings in the country. I only listen to him when I wake up so I can remind myself there's someone out there who's sadder than me."

"And Pete thinks he's _actually_ funny," Sam said. She fixed Freddie with a serious stare.

"That is pretty stupid," Freddie admitted, nodding to himself. "But wait, how did you not notice this before?"

"I already told you, this was the first time I actually listened to him talk."

"Then what were you doing until now?"

Sam's head lowered, her shoulders rolling inward. A sheepish look inhabited her face. "...Staring at him."

Freddie rolled his eyes. "Well that serves you right for going after boy candy."

"I'm distraught!" Sam snapped. Her discovery of reading over the past year must have paid off, because Freddie never anticipated the blonde knowing such a word. His reaction at Sam's surprising vocab was eclipsed when he saw the way she stared at him. Somewhere in that somber expression, he sensed a vague, yet familiar drop of pain. Just a drop, but a drop nonetheless. Freddie knew this was one of the rare occasions where Sam Puckett was sincerely hurting.

"I changed the way I _looked _for him. I thought I liked him the same way I..." Sam trailed off sharply and went very still. For a moment, Freddie thought her eyes widened, similar to the way a person's did when experiencing a sudden wave of panic. Sam quickly recovered. Her posture relaxed.

"The same way you liked Jonah?" Freddie suggested. He did so since he couldn't think of any other person Sam had liked _that_ way.

"_No_, that's not..." Sam crushed her cup in her fist. She looked like she wanted to say several things at once, but had difficulty deciding on the right one. "Don't you understand?"

Sam's blue eyes did not burn with fire the way they did last year, but her inquiry held no less heat. The question came out more like a demand, quickly and angrily.

Freddie still did not understand. He had a ways to go before he would. He made progress over the past few months however, and had managed to at least place a couple of fingers on the appropriate response.

"You're upset because you didn't really like him." Freddie shrugged in a manner that was both unsure and sympathetic. "You didn't like him the way you thought you did."

Sam sighed. She couldn't keep the disappointment at bay completely, though she put forth a decent effort. She nodded, keeping her gaze away from Freddie's. "Yeah you...pretty much hit the nail on the head Fredward."

Freddie knew he didn't hit the nail on the head. He wasn't that foolish. Maybe he connected, but it would take more skill and experience before he could pound that nail in the right way. The question was, how would he learn?

"And don't try and hug me again!" Sam ordered. She pointed her finger straight at Freddie's chest, looking and sounding just like her old self. Freddie felt intimidated, then relieved. It was a pleasing mixture of emotions.

He raised up his hands. "Don't worry, I'm not feeling the urge."

Sam snorted. She peered down at her ruined cup. Thick, pale-red fluid slowly dripped onto the tabletop. She glanced out the window, a smile slowly overtaking her lips. "Whoever thought I'd ask the king of dorks to come cheer me up," she muttered.

Freddie smiled to himself. "Yeah, I still remember what you said when Carly forced you to ask for my help in Computer Science. 'Even if I was crawling on my hands and knees outside your apartment door, dying of starvation Benson; I'd never come to you for help.'"

"Yep. And I intend on keeping my vow."

The Benson boy's jaw tightened. "But you just admitted you asked me to come cheer you up!"

"Only because I didn't have any other options, and _you_ came _here," _Sam said, pointing at Freddie once again. "I didn't force you and you came to me, so it doesn't count."

"So it doesn't count," Freddie mocked in a silly voice.

"You owe me anyway," Sam said. "Who took you to get your first smoothie after Carly turned you down three years ago?"

"You made me pay for both of ours! And you didn't so much take me as you did drag me."

"Then how about I drag you out the front entrance and we can finish this on the sidewalk?" Sam said, molding her damaged cup into a ball. She was smiling.

"Good!" Freddie shouted. He pounded the table in emphasis and grinned at her. "Let's do it!"

"Al-right," Sam said with a laugh. Her tone had returned to conversational level. She clapped Freddie amiably on the upper arm and rose from her seat. "C'mon Nubbles, let's go raid Carly's fridge before she gets back."

Freddie followed Sam toward the door. The conclusion to their conversation put him in a pleasant state of mind. He became perplexed however when he saw the way she swung her hips when she walked. She sashayed with particular flair, though he had no idea as to why.

"Checkin' out ma booty?"

Freddie nearly choked. In his mind's eye, he could practically see Dark Freddie, leering from somewhere in the deep caverns of his consciousness. _Oh yes, he's checkin' it out alright Puckett. He's been checkin' out all kinds of things about your accessories, ever since you two kissed_.

"I still say it looks like a ham," Freddie shot back.

"Hey, I take that as a compliment," Sam said. She slapped herself on the behind. "Ham _does_ look pretty good, if I do say so myself."

Freddie remained silent for quite a while afterward.

So the bickering sidekicks made their way to the Bushwell. Their chattering consisted of the typical fare; mostly arguing, interspersed with the ordinary line of dialogue. Only once did their banter approach anything that was serious. This happened when Sam said:

"Did you really mean it?"

Freddie glanced at the blonde. They had been quiet for a while, and the question had come out of nowhere. "What do you mean?"

"What you said during my party. You know, that you thought of me as a friend."

The Benson boy chewed his lip. How very Sam-like of her. To take him outside of his comfort zone and force him to face the one question he had been battling with all evening.

"Yeah. I mean, I guess I did." He looked at her, wondering why she had asked this.

"Oh," Sam said. She didn't seem to be that interested in Freddie's response after all. "Cool." Sometime later, she added: "By the way, what's with the bags under your eyes? Something been waking you up at night?"

* * *

><p><em>One month later...<em>

_She's not my friend, and I can't believe I ever thought different_. Those were the thoughts running through Freddie's head as he shuffled down the hallway with his newly adjusted shirt and pants. The shirt he didn't mind so much, since he wore tanks every so often during the summer months, even though presently it was late November. The pants were what did it. Seriously, Sam had cut them so high they showed his _underwear_ for crying out loud. Enough kids had snapped pictures of Freddie's exposed boxers with their cell-phones to ensure that he would never live it down. Puckett was a nightmare. He had grown too soft on her, and now it was time to put the natural order of the universe back into place.

Except that she came to him. She broke her vow. She knocked on his door one afternoon, and with that somber, hurt-Sam expression he had just seen a month ago and only a handful of times before that, she asked him for help. Sam hadn't been crawling on all fours, begging for sustenance, but Freddie knew this wasn't far removed from such a gesture. Certain things Sam said with every bone in her body. This was one of them.

So he gave up a cruise for her. It had been one of the few things over the past two weeks that was exciting enough to take his mind off his conflicted feelings for Sam and his ever-present longing for Carly. Freddie always loved animals, and had been cultivating an interest in marine biology. He was thinking that one day, he could incorporate his techno know-how to advance research in the field. If he won the trip, he could probably find time to explore his interests and put the experience on his college applications. Maybe it would even help him win a scholarship.

But he had given it up. For her. Kicking and screaming on the inside, he trudged into Principal Franklin's office and offered to transfer his victory to Missy Robinson. When Ted asked him why, Freddie responded: "I'm doing it for a friend."

Ted nodded, very, very slowly. He thought to himself that now, certainly, he was losing his touch at reading body language. Because he thought that he saw a faintly similar, though rather reluctant, look about Freddie. One that resembled the look Sam Puckett always got when Valerie used to be a student at Ridgeway.

Freddie stole to the boy's bathroom after exiting Principal Franklin's office. There, he leaned over the sink and stared at his reflection in the mirror.

"What did you go and do that for Freddie?" he asked his reflection. He paused before continuing. "That was a pretty strong thing to do. Even for a friend."

'Yes it was, wasn't it Benson?' Dark Freddie said in the netherworld of Freddie's mind. 'It almost stretches the boundaries of friendship, doesn't it?'

Freddie stayed in the bathroom for a long time.

He would feel those boundaries stretch again a month later. Though there were other warning signs, and the stretching would inevitably lead to ripping less than a year from then, the next time he noticeably felt the stretch was in a month. He would be out Christmas shopping with Sam when, among other things, she would teach him how to do The Candy Cane Twirl.

**AN: Thank you so much for all the reviews and comments guys. I cannot say how much the mean. I'm feeling a bit better now, though it may take a while for me to completely recover. It was a bit more serious than I thought, haha. I should still be able to keep up the regular updates. I may take a little bit longer depending on some of the chapters, since they're becoming increasingly poignant and I want to get them just right. We'll see how it goes.  
><strong>


	9. The Candy Cane Twirl

**The Candy Cane Twirl**

_One month later..._

"Now remind me again why I agreed to do this?" Freddie asked. He carried a pile of no less than six items in his arms as he walked down the first floor of the Ridgeway Mall. Some of the items were big, some were small, some nicely wrapped, some needed wrapping. Freddie groaned as his shopping partner added another parcel to his already burdensome load.

"Well, technically you didn't agree to do it," Sam said. She turned away without waiting to see whether Freddie could handle a seventh package. Unlike Freddie, her arms were not laden down by cardboard boxes and plastic containers. "The reason why I dragged you along was so that I didn't have to lug all this stuff myself. And we both had to do our Christmas shopping for Carly, so it only made sense that we went together."

"I already _did_ my Christmas shopping for Carly!" Freddie told Sam for the tenth time. "I made a very practical plan and came here one week after Thanksgiving so that I wouldn't get bogged down by Black Friday traffic, or get here too late and find that everything was picked over. I even subscribed to weekly emails lists for fifteen different companies so that I could print out the coupons."

"Carly doesn't want any of that techno-crab."

"Who wouldn't want a solar-powered hair blower?" Freddie said. He wished he had a third arm so he could fish out his Pear Phone and download a picture for Sam. _Then_ she'd see things his way. "It doesn't use any electricity, it's good the for environment, and I found one that's purple. Purple!"

"Do listen to yourself talk? Only you would buy Carly a purple solar-powered hair blower. Which, incidentally, would be completely useless because the majority of the human race uses hair blowers in_side_!"

"There are windows all over the loft, so she would be perfectly capable of using it while staying in_side_. In fact, since you brought it up, she can stand in front of one of the loft's many windows, let the sunlight filter through to power her hair blower, and have a nice view of _out_side!"

Sam rolled her eyes and released a loud groan, as if she never heard anything stupider. "Except you're forgetting that we live in Seattle, where it is _always, cloudy_!"

The Benson boy's previously smooth gait wobbled. He let his head down in defeat. "I..." He made a nasty face here. "...forgot about that."

"Which is why you need me to help you out," Sam said matter-of-factly. Freddie winced at the casual way with which she had said this. If there was one thing he hated in this world, it was letting Sam win an argument. Which, unfortunately for Freddie, happened quite frequently. Nevertheless, he wasn't in a mood to give up just yet.

"Oh," Freddie said in a very sarcastic tone. He angrily picked through the seven items he carried, until he found the one he was looking for. He shoved it in Sam's face, so that she was forced to look at it. "And I suppose Carly would like it if I got her _this_ instead!"

In front of her, Sam saw an object smothered in bubble wrap. A very familiar-looking kind of object, a kind that she had personal experience with ever since a certain portion of her anatomy began developing.

"That's a quality bra Benson. You don't see many made with that kind of care and devotion to detail."

One of the bubbles covering the bra popped. "Which doesn't explain why you insisted that lady use me as a model!"

Sam shrugged. "Well, my body's a little bit more...advanced than Carly's. It's not my fault you're a better fit."

"That woman stuck halved tennis balls on my _chest_!" Freddie exclaimed. If he closed his eyes and concentrated hard enough, he could still feel those tennis balls. The last thing Freddie needed was to be seen out in public wearing prosthetic boobs.

"You should consider yourself lucky. If you ever need to make a bra in the future, now you know how."

"Yeah, I can already see the message I'm going to write on Carly's card. 'Here's something to give you a lift. Merry Christmas to the both of you, Love Freddie!'

Sam made a noise halfway between a cough and a laugh. Even nowadays it seemed, there was a positive correlation between Freddie's state of misery and her state of amusement. Rain clouds for Freddie meant sunshine for Sam.

The Benson boy curled his lip as he sought to get a better handle on the presents pile. _That's right Puckett, laugh it up. At this point, I'd say I finally reached the point where my self-esteem can't get any lower_.

Freddie promptly tripped over his own shoelaces and fell face-first on the hard mall floor. Each of the seven packages struck him on the backside with cruel irony. To his credit, he didn't make so much as a squeak throughout this. Once he felt himself falling, he let nature take its course.

While he lay on the ground, a weight pressed in between Freddie's shoulder blades. As best as he could, Freddie swiveled his neck, so that he could discover the source of the pressure. Sam was sitting on him. Big surprise.

"You know I lied," Sam said like she had just realized something. "_This_ was why I brought you." She bounced on Freddie's limp form, ignoring the groans coming from underneath her. "You remember how you said my butt looks like a ham? I can't help but wonder; does it feel like one?"

"You're crushing my body," came Freddie's muffled reply. Though he could not see it, he just knew his response had made the blonde smile.

"Sitting on Benson after he humiliates himself in public: priceless." Freddie groaned even louder when the weight that was Sam lifted off his back. "Mama'll be right back. Don't go anywhere."

It took everything in Freddie not to lash out at her with a thousand foul words. Instead, moaning for good measure, he peeled himself off the ground with his arms and onto his rump. He watched Sam from this seated position, curious as to where she was headed. A light-bulb went on in his head when he saw the coffee stand, to which Sam was making a beeline. To which his _friend_ was making a beeline.

Freddie's irritation ebbed away. His stormy emotions faded. _What would I do without you you blonde-headed demon? _Freddie sigh. _I'm starting to think giving up that cruise for you wasn't so hard after all._

The turbulence in Freddie's heart and mind had abated considerably over the past several weeks. Though it flared up on occasion, it calmed down enough to the point where he could think straight again. For the most part at least. His current strategy was to stop questioning his relationship with Sam so much, and just accept it. Sure, they bickered and grated each others nerves just about everyday, but that was simply the way things were. Sam was Sam, he was Freddie. That would never change.

Freddie had an easier time when he just went with the flow around the blonde. It came naturally too, and he found that he sort of liked it. Perhaps Gibby had been right. Put his mind at ease and play it cool. That was kind of what he had done without knowing it, wasn't it?

_I wonder what kind of drink she's getting herself?_ Freddie got up and went to the balls of his feet to get a better look. He didn't have to however because just then, Sam turned around. Freddie frowned when he saw that Sam brought not just one, but two large cups with her. _A double dose? Great, as if modeling bras for Carly wasn't bad enough. Now I have to deal with a dangerously over-caffeinated Sam._

When Sam returned to the spot where Freddie was waiting, she handed him one of the steaming cups without so much as a glance. "Here you go Popeye. Liquid spinach to fuel your weak muscles."

Freddie peered down in his cup. For a moment, he feared Sam actually meant what she said. He wouldn't put it past her. When he inspected the contents, he only found frothy, white-brown liquid staring back at him, bobbing slightly against its paper walls. Freddie caught a whiff of the liquid's scent. He looked at the cup Sam was holding and frowned more deeply. Unlike him, she had a regular hot chocolate.

"Wait," Freddie said, eying his blonde friend. She stared back innocently at him. "This is a Peppermint latte. This is my favorite drink in the world, how did you know that?" He asked her this because there should have been no way she should have known. It's not like Freddie went around telling everyone what his favorite foods and drinks were. He tended to be pretty low-key about such information, although not necessarily on purpose.

"Just shut up and drink it," Sam replied. She took a swig of her hot cocoa. Behind her cup, she grinned. Freddie had no idea about this smile.

Freddie felt it in that instant. That pain in his heart. Not as strong as it had been, out on the fire escape during _that_ night, but he felt a dull ache that was all too reminiscent.

In addition to waking up at random hours of the early morning, heart pounding and skin sweating and not understanding why, the dull knife-like throbbing in his pump cropped up every so often. Perhaps it was his imagination, but Freddie also thought the pain was spreading. What he hadn't realized yet was that it only ached in the presence of Sam.

"Something wrong?" The perceptive blonde had caught the cringe crossing Freddie's countenance.

_'You didn't see the size of that bolt. It was bloody enormous.'_

Freddie almost dropped his latte. A voice had spoken in his head, and it wasn't Dark Freddie. He hadn't the first clue of where it had come from. It was like it had been radio-broadcast in his brain. Yet it failed to shock him as much as it should have. Why? Had he heard it somewhere before?

"Dude, what's wrong with you?" Sam demanded. She studied her friend with a mask of aggravation, which hid beneath it a layer of concern. Freddie gradually wound his way back down to earth. He saw the way Sam regarded him. Had she asked him a question?

"It's okay," Freddie said, trying to shrug off the strange occurrence. With the tilt of his head, he indicated a couple of benches stationed against the western wall of the mall. "Let's just sit down for a bit."

"Fine," Sam grumbled. Not saying a word, she helped Freddie scoop up the dropped packages. They had to make two trips before they could transfer all of them to the benches Freddie had pointed out. Once this had been completed, they eagerly sat on the worn, varnished wood. The benches were comfortable in the way only old furniture could be. A good thing, considering that Sam and Freddie had both been walking without breaks for the better part of three hours.

Neither were keen on confessing this to the other, though they both felt and thought it.

"_Attention shoppers. If you recognize my voice, then you are correct! It's me, DJ Archilochus from Radio Ridgeway Land. I'm popping in to let you all know this is the last call for The Candy Cane Twirl. Last call for The Candy Cane Twirl. We're all set up in front of 'Schneider's Health Supplies,'_ _so for those of you crazy couples wanting to shake a leg and participate in this yuletide tradition, then come on down! The winners this year win a big old sack full of limited-time, holiday-themed fatcakes. FATCAKES, YEAH! And for those of you wishing to come by and harass me because you hate my show...well then, I guess I just told you where to find me. Jerks."_

"Holiday-theme fatcakes?" Freddie said. He scoffed. "Everyone knows those special-edition snacks are never any good. I wonder what kind of pathetic junk-food addict would enter a contest just to win–"

"I HAVE TO WIN!" Sam screeched. The force of her outburst blew Freddie clean off the bench, and earned several stares from passerby. Once he had recovered, the Benson boy sat up on his butt. He had become pretty well acquainted with the mall floor thus far.

"What's _wrong_ with you?" Freddie exclaimed. He immediately regretted saying this, for in doing so, he had reminded Sam of his presence. Freddie's insides went cold when the blonde turned her wild gaze on him. An insane grin split her features. "Oh no. I know what you're thinking Sam, and I am not helping you win any contest. Did you hear that? We got Carly enough presents as it is, so I say we just take our things and leave. Sam? Did you hear what I...oh no. _Sam_. Take that look off your face, it's creeping me out. Sam! Don't come any closer! I _said_, don't come any – don't touch me! Sam! _Sam_!"

Freddie found himself lifted into the air and settled lengthwise over Sam's right shoulder. He struggled with all his might to break free, but confound it, even now that he had hit puberty the blonde was still stronger than him.

"Hey! You made me spill my peppermint latte!"

"Don't care! There's a sack full of limited-time fatcakes waiting for us, and WE, are going to win them!"

* * *

><p>Roughly forty-five seconds later, Freddie once more viewed the world from an upright position. He and Sam ambled into a throng of people milling outside of Schneider's Health Supplies, just as DJ Archilochus had mentioned. The DJ and radio show host himself sat behind a wooden desk with a microphone in front of him. A tall thermos of coffee and a large bowl of candy canes rested at either side of him. Two large speakers flanked either side of the desk. Archilochus was a small man with dark hair, dark eyes, and an upbeat, energetic nature. When he saw Freddie and Sam, his eyes bugged out.<p>

"Hey, it's Freddie and Sam," DJ Arch (pronounced 'Ark') said, slipping off his headphones and setting them down on his desk. Grinning, the DJ got out of his seat and walked over to the two teens. He stuck out his hand, which was unfortunate since neither Freddie nor Sam really wanted to shake it. "Just wanted to say that I love your guys's show. Real funny stuff."

Freddie and Sam smiled as politely as possible.

"So what do you both think of mine?"

Noticeable cracks formed in Freddie and Sam's beams. They glanced furtively at each other, and then back at the eager DJ.

"We think it's really..." Freddie began.

"Stupid," Sam concluded.

"Yeah, we kind of hate it."

DJ Arch shrugged. "Eh, it's okay. I get that a lot." He then eyed Sam. A cheeky grin lit his countenance. "So, what are you doing later on?"

"I'm still in high school fudgebag," Sam said.

The color drained out of DJ Arch's features. He coughed. "Whoops, that was uh...awkward." Embarrassed by his mistake, the DJ averted his gaze from the two teens. "I'm gonna go...back to my table. 'Bout time we started this dance." The DJ turned around, began walking toward his desk, and then halted. He peered the two a final time.

"Oh, and Benson?" DJ Arch quickly pointed his finger from Sam to Freddie. "This uh, shopping excursion is a bit light-hearted, but that storm _is_ coming. Fast. Don't you ever doubt it." That being said, the DJ returned to his seat.

"What did he mean by that?" Sam stared quizzically at Freddie. The Benson boy, who honestly had no idea, shrugged.

"I don't know."

"We don't have time for this," Sam said with a huff. Her twin sapphires bore into Freddie. "You know how to do this thing, right?"

Freddie gave Sam a look that showed her he didn't. "Do what? I never even heard of this contest until today."

Sam's posture stiffened. "You've lived in Ridgeway for how long now, and you've never heard of The Candy Cane Twirl?"

Freddie threw his hands up in the air. "Apparently not."

"Okay," Sam said. She squished the sides of her fingers together on each hand. Keeping calm was a strain, to say the least. "The Candy Cane Twirl is a dance."

An eyebrow arched on Freddie's forehead. "A dance?"

"Yes," Sam said impatiently.

"And you wanted to do it...with me?"

"Continue that train of thought Fredward and a train of a different kind will crush your skull. Understood?"

One warning was enough for Freddie.

"Now," Sam said. She seized Freddie by the shirt and pulled him aggressively toward her, so that he could not look anywhere but at her face. Of all the moments in the world, Freddie's brain chose this one to register how soft and shimmery Sam's hair appeared. For some crazy reason, he wanted to touch it. Freddie's heart, his wounded heart, began beating faster.

"The rules are that we can chose any style of dance that we want." Sam let out a big sigh. The kind of sigh that sounded like it had been released only under the greatest unwillingness. "Please tell me you know some kind of organized dance movements."

A sweat-drop trickled down Freddie's temple. "Uhhhh–"

"Then you're going to learn in the next five seconds."

The seriousness in Sam's voice made Freddie laugh. "Oh, and I suppose you're some kind of _amazing_ dancer, rig–"

"Put your hands on my hips."

Freddie's eyes widened. He must have misheard her. He definitely must of misheard her. There was no way in the world, fatcakes on the line or not, that Sam Puckett had just asked him to do that.

"Wh-what?"

"Your hands. My hips. NOW!"

As if it were a reflex, Freddie's hands clamped on Sam's hips, making a soft clapping noise. Thousands of thoughts ran through Freddie's mind, all of them very primal. The boy swallowed the cotton balls in his throat.

"Um," Freddie squeaked. "Aren't my hands supposed to go on...you're waist?"

"This isn't ballroom dancing Benson," Sam said with a roughness akin to sandpaper. "Look, I've done this contest when DJ Ark was judging it before, okay? He's a sap for romantic stuff, so anything we can do to spice things up without breaking the rules. I am WINNING those fatcakes, and if I'm allowed to strip off all my clothes and dance this thing NAKED, then I'll do it!"

_If I'm allowed to strip off all my clothes. All my clothes. And dance this thing naked. Naked. Naked. Naked, naked, naked, naked..._

Dark Freddie repeated this monstrously in Freddie's head. If only Freddie hadn't been holding Sam's hips, which he had noticed to his displeasure (or pleasure) had become quite curvy in recent months.

"And stop thinking dirty thoughts!" Sam said.

"I...I'm not thinking dirty–"

"FOCUS!" Sam slapped her hands on top of Freddie's, forcing his palms harder against her hips.

_Oh my God._

"The other reason I'm having you do this is so it will be easier for you to anticipate my movements." Sam stepped backward with her left leg. She then stepped forward with her right. "You feel that?"

_I feel it alright._

"Do you feel it?" Sam snapped a second time.

"Yes!" Freddie shouted, though not in a happy way.

"Alright, all contestants for The Candy Cane Twirl, let's get rolling,"DJ Arch announced into his microphone. "Arrange yourselves where I can see you, grab your candy canes, and as soon as everyone's ready we'll get started."

"Candy canes?" Freddie said. He had squeaked like a lab rat.

"Calm down," Sam replied. She roughly grabbed Freddie's wrist and dragged him toward DJ Arch's table. Freddie had almost forgotten the large bowl of candy canes propped on the surface. Candy canes weren't that unusual; it was the holidays after all. But how did they fit into a dance?

"He must have explained the rules before we got here," Sam continued. She snatched two candy canes out of the container, kept one for herself and gave the other to Freddie. The blonde began unwrapping her own, spurring Freddie to do the same. "It's like I said; we can do any dance we want, but the trick is we each have to keep a candy cane in our mouths without dropping it, and we can't use our hands to adjust them if they get loose. If one of us drops our candy cane, we lose. Whichever couple lasts the longest wins, otherwise the contest ends when the songs ends and we're judged by skill."

Worry lined Freddie's forehead. "_Sam_," he whined, "I don't want to–"

Sam yanked Freddie's candy cane out of his hand and wedged it lengthwise between his teeth. She then planted her own between her lips, so that it matched Freddie's and ran parallel to her mouth. The Benson boy's eyes peered fearfully at her.

"Unguh," Freddie protested through his mouthpiece. Sam produced a guttural sound in her throat. She whipped out her candy cane.

"Look Benson!" Sam paused suddenly after saying this. Her tone softened. "It's just a fencing match," she said. It was a rare occurrence indeed, but Sam's eyes matched her tone. "C'mon, I saw you win that big tournament last weekend. You beat Toder for like the tenth time in a row, you were amazing. A lot of that's footwork, right?"

Freddie was rendered silent, both physically and mentally, after Sam had said this. A wave of calm washed over him, so cool and relaxing that he could practically dip his fingers into it. As Sam stuck the sugar-coated rod back in her mouth and his hands went to her hips, and hers past his shoulders, that calmness congealed. He could do this. It was just a fencing match. Just a fencing match.

_Thank you._

"Okay everyone," DJ Arch said. He glanced at Freddie and Sam. And smiled. "The music will start in five...four...three...two... ..."

Time seemed to both speed up and slow down simultaneously. Music pounded out of the large speakers, and before Freddie even knew what was happening, his legs were complimenting Sam stride for stride. He looked down at his feet and saw two alien appendages, moving of their own accord, responding to the slightest prompt from those of his blonde partner. His gaze slid up to Sam's face. Comprehension slowly dawned on him.

This was easy. In fact, it was so easy, it was almost laughable. Freddie suddenly felt as light as air. Sam's hip-trick certainly helped, but it was the hours he logged in every week, cultivating his fencing talents that made the difference. To his well-coordinated limbs, the process of finding a rhythm and maintaining it required relatively little effort. He anticipated Sam's movements just the way he would anticipate an opponent's.

Actually, the only difficulty Freddie experienced in all of this was keeping his grip on the candy cane. And he wasn't the only one. Within the first twenty seconds, he detected clattering from multiple directions, followed by the brittle noises of the perpetrating objects fracturing into a million pieces. As the seconds ticked by into minutes, and Freddie's respiration rate increased, it became increasingly difficult to retain his grip.

_'If my velocity starts to make you sweat,  
><em>

_Then just don't let go.  
><em>

_And if their Heaven ain't got a vacancy,  
><em>

_Then we just, then we just, then we just  
><em>

_Then we just get up and go!'_

Freddie stared at Sam. He didn't know if she could tell, if his attempt was even successful, but his lips tried to form a smile. Candy canes had a way of complicating facial expressions. He didn't if _he_ could tell, if his mind wasn't just playing tricks on him, but he thought Sam smiled back at him.

_I'm having fun,_ Freddie thought. Feeling emboldened, he clasped Sam's warm hand in his and twirled her around. Sam spun very naturally. They were completely in tune. When she came face-to-face with him again, Freddie saw something simmering in her blue sapphires that he had never previously encountered. Something in the way that her eyes grazed his. Flirtatiousness? Was she staring at him _that_ way?

_'I can't slow down,  
><em>

_I won't be waiting for you.  
><em>

_I can't stop now,_

_Because I'm _dan-cin_'!'_

Before Freddie could analyze Sam any further, she flipped around once more, this time on her own. She gave him her backside. Leaning backward, she pressed her shoulder-blades into Freddie's chest. The bony projections dug against his breastplate. The fingers of Sam's right hand met the nape of his neck. Fragrant shampoo filled Freddie's nostrils. Golden locks of hair hung just inches from him.

Freddie only caught the lyrics to the song in bits and pieces. He didn't remember it well afterward, but some parts stuck with him.

_'(Who) they want you to be,  
><em>

_(Who) they wanted to see,  
><em>

_(Go) kill the party with me,  
><em>

_And never go home!'_

Sam suddenly whirled around a third time. Her long hair followed its owner at a slower pace. With the force of inertia, it cascaded over the side of her face and remained there, obscuring it from view like a blonde veil. Now only one of those blue orbs peeked out at Freddie. It shone with a mysterious light both enrapturing and dangerous. Candy canes shattered all around them and the atmosphere coursed with cursing, but chiz on a stick, Freddie wasn't even on planet _earth_ anymore.

_'You're unbelievable,  
><em>

_Ah, so unbelievable,  
><em>

_Ah, you ruin everything,  
><em>

_Oh,'_

Urges and desires that Freddie didn't even know existed hit him like a gunshot blast. He had never felt like this near Carly. With her, it had always been a pure, innocent longing. A schoolboy's sweet-hearted devotion. Mostly, it was Carly's face that attracted him. But the blonde-headed vixen writhing in front of him? In horrifying, pulsating throbs, every fiber of his being (yes, the same words she texted back to him after one of his own had gone awry) screamed for her. Except in the polar opposite spasm of hate.

_'And her soul will be poured into yours.'_

This last line had not come from the song.

A restrained cry from Sam brought Freddie to his senses. Her one visible eye had widened. Alarmed, Freddie realized that his candy cane wobbled loosely between his molars. He had been so occupied with the unexpected blast of desire for Sam that he had forgotten to keep his grip.

Freddie went to push the candy cane back into place, but another cry from Sam reminded him that he wasn't allowed to touch it with his hands. Regret filled Freddie. Despite his earlier reticence, he wanted to win those fatcakes now. He wanted to win them, and for some inscrutable reason, he wanted to win them with _Sam_.

_'And never go home!' _went the song, calling Freddie's attention to it for only the briefest of flashes.

The candy cane loosened even further. Freddie fought to hang on. His heart raced. They had been dancing for several minutes, he just had to hold on until the song ended. Just until the song ended.

_I'm losing it!_ Freddie panicked inside his head. The candied rod slipped to the front rows of his teeth. _I can't hold it any longer! I'm not gonna make it! Sorry Sam, but I can't–_

What happened next, like just about everything else that occurred over those short, yet long three minutes, halted Freddie's world dead on its axis. Stealthy as a fox, Sam leaned, she _leaned_, into Freddie. Suddenly, they were back on the fire escape, the only difference being that their roles had reversed and Sam was initiating the action. Her mouth came closer, closer, and closer to Freddie's. And closer still. It went in slow motion. She came like a surgeon, going in for that final, decisive cut.

Their lips never touched.

Using the end of her candy cane, Sam batted Freddie's back into teeth. The sugary handle settled between Freddie's molars. Then Sam waited. After a few seconds, Freddie caught on. She was waiting for him to clamp down his jaw. Their candy canes were both sticky, and when they withdrew, they needed to bear down on them so they wouldn't fall out.

Freddie clamped down his jaw. He saw Sam do the same. Then, slowly, staring at one another the entire time, they withdrew.

_'And never go home!'_

"Alright, I'm ending the song right there!" DJ Arch boomed over the microphone. Freddie and Sam were jolted to full alertness. "Congratulations to the iCarly kids, you're the only ones left standing and YOU, have won the big sack full of fatcakes!"

Freddie gaped at his surroundings. Somehow, during all the pandemonium he had just experienced, all the other contestants had dropped their candy canes. Probably thousands of red and white pieces lay scattered along the floor. It had all happened so fast, he had barely even noticed the other competitors. He and Sam had won.

Yet again, Freddie's thoughts were interrupted. This time, it was courtesy of a banshee scream from his dancing partner.

Sam collided with Freddie, squeezing the oxygen out of his lungs, and sending him pinwheeling backward. Once more, Freddie found himself lying on the mall floor. Except Sam lay on top of him on this occasion, screeching and crushing him between her arms. Fortunately, Sam was no longer a supernova of lustful proportions. She was just Sam, just his friend again. But his female friend, which from this moment onward Freddie never forgot when he was around her.

Freddie was so exhausted, he didn't even notice the dull aching in his chest, the recurrent one that hovered over his heart. Dancing tired him out. _Sam_, tired him out.

Over in his desk, the DJ, who would only appear once more in the course of Freddie's other fall, the bigger one, glanced at the two teens. His eyes glittered mysteriously.

"And so the second column rises_."_

**AN: Sorry for the long wait you guys. I was in and out of the doctor's office a lot, but now I'm all good. I know I haven't gotten back to a lot of your reviews and messages lately, but I will ASAP. I'm thinking the remaining chapters won't keep getting longer, but nothing's for sure. And yes, no self-respecting author includes himself in fanfics, but I just couldn't resist. I figured if I made the characters kind of hate me, it wouldn't be so bad, haha! Thanks again for all the feedback**_, _**love you all!**


	10. The Two Columns: Rise and Fall  Part 1

**The Two Columns: Rise and Fall - Part One  
><strong>

The second column had indeed begun its ascent. Perhaps Freddie knew it even then, somewhere deep inside of his gut. Things had changed once again between him and his blonde-headed nightmare. His eyes had been fully opened to the fact that Sam was a female. A female who wielded a deadly power to both enrage and attract him. Freddie never looked at her the same way following The Candy Cane Twirl. No matter how hard he tried.

That night, as he laid in bed, he couldn't last more than five minutes without flipping from his right side to his left, or vice versa. The image of Sam with her hair shielding half of her face, leaving only a single blue eye staring at him in a way he couldn't even being to understand. The feel of her fingertips on the back of his neck. His boldness, his confidence as he took one of her small hands in his and spun her around. The way her lithe form had evoked such fleeting, yet intense desire.

"Fine," Freddie growled as he glanced at his clock and saw that yet another half-hour had gone by. His gaze traveled to the ceiling of his room. Above it, he imagined the starlit sky. "Good job, bravo, well-done," he said. He aimed this at all forms of higher authority. "You made me want her. For a very brief moment, you made me want her. I concede the point. Sam Puckett _is_ kind of hot."

Freddie rolled his eyes. He dug his nose into his pillow. _Still, it was just hormones. Just hormones. Lot's of girls have been doing that to me lately._

_Ah, but not Carly_, Dark Freddie said. _Oh no, with her your feelings are sooooo polite. Proper kisses on the mouth. But the blonde, oh. She made you want to do _such_ naughty things._

_Knock it off!_ Freddie told his dark alter-ego. He shifted, pressing the soft comfort of his pillow against his cheek. _I like Carly for more than just her looks. My feelings for her are just more balanced, that's all._

Finally, it seemed sleep was ready to claim Freddie. He felt himself dipping closer to that precipice, beyond which awaited the ocean-deep pit of unconsciousness. As he drifted off, his thoughts criss-crossed and stumbled onward.

_Not falling for Puckett. Just hormones. Chemicals. Don't like her like that. Never...will. Told the gods. Freddie bear likes...brunettes. Love...can't come... …from lust._

That night, Freddie had his nightmare again. Not that he remembered. But from this point forward, he would find himself bursting awake, bathed in sweat, with increasing frequency.

* * *

><p><em>Over the next several months...<em>

* * *

><p>Freddie Benson was sitting on his stool in Environmental Science, daydreaming, when Mr. Henning called on him.<p>

"Freddie, is something bothering you?"

Freddie, who had been staring at Carly and dreaming about her for nearly the thousandth time, shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

"No."

* * *

><p>The fourteen year-old stood not far from the entrance to <em>Hey Food<em>, shopping list in hand and grumbling. Roughly eighteen months ago, his least favorite thing in the world would have been spending an afternoon with Sam Puckett. Nowadays, his least favorite thing in the world _had_ to be shopping. Like having two girls for best friends didn't make him feminine enough. But, when you lived in a single-parent household and said parent was prone to working long, unexpected shifts at the hospital, what could you do?

Freddie may not have disliked shopping so much if it weren't for his mother's insane grocery lists. Not a single item on there was free from some kind of addendum. And how did she expect him to stay away from high-fructose corn syrup? They put that stuff in everything these days. Nevertheless, Marissa Benson warned him in red ink about the pronounced spike in blood sugar produced by the substance, and even cited scientific literature to support her claims.

With a final sigh, he had every intention of beginning his journey in the baked goods section (one loaf of no less than seven multi-grain bread) when something out of his periphery stopped him. He looked to his right and saw a cardboard stand that held numerous twenty-count packages of candy canes. Leftovers from Christmas. Fifty percent off.

Freddie wheeled his shopping cart over to the stand. He picked up one of the packages and flipped it over, so he could inspect the nutrition facts. The first ingredient was high-fructose corn syrup.

The Benson boy stared at the package a long time. He and Sam had danced The Candy Cane Twirl less than two weeks ago. Ever since then, Freddie had been having the strangest hankering for candy canes.

The package got tossed in the shopping cart.

* * *

><p>Construction to rebuild the wall that had been demolished by Pam Puckett's car took about a week. During this period, Freddie and Sam had been relocated back to their old lockers. So much for living the life out of legendary locker 239.<p>

So much for Freddie's money as well.

At first, Freddie had been relieved. It was nice to be able to do what he wanted with his locker when he wanted. He and Sam never would have lasted long as locker-mates anyway. Their styles were way too different. Sooner or later, they would have killed each other.

Within a couple of weeks however, Freddie found that he sort of missed sharing storage space with the blonde. Peace and quite _was_ nice, but after a while it became boring.

With Sam Puckett around, things never got boring.

* * *

><p>Sometimes, with Sam Puckett around, things became the very opposite of boring. They became very, very un-boring.<p>

Last night, the blonde had planted _another one_ right on his very own two lips. What had she done? He thought they had only done it the first time just to get it over with. But now? She had just broken all the rules, rules that she herself had agreed upon.

It angered him. She had been acting different all week. Sam didn't like stripes. Sam didn't conduct pleasant conversations with him, Sam didn't dance with him unless fatcakes were in order, and Sam definitely didn't kiss him out of intrinsic desire.

He wanted his friend back. He wanted Sam back. And he had tried getting her back, oh how he had tried. He had ragged on her about this whole 'Melanie' business almost nonstop, and did everything possible get her to snap out of it. He even wore a stupid striped shirt and reminded her how she always hated him (this was a bit of an overstatement, but heck, whatever it took).

Mostly, he wanted her to stop taking things so far. So far in her bid to fool him that she actually feigned interest in him. Because she confused him when she did this. Because she kissed him again, even though now it couldn't be just to get it over with. Because after she kissed him, in those awful, nerve-wracking, and _wonderful_ seconds afterward, for the briefest of instants, he had wanted her to kiss him again. And again. And again.

So he ran away.

So he came back, into the Shay's loft to confront her, though he pretended to come in for something else.

And he was successful. After combating her for the millionth time that week, she finally admitted that the whole thing was a sham. She even acknowledged his intellectual superiority.

Now, as Freddie exited the Shay's en route to his own apartment, he couldn't help but feel a savage sense of victory. For once, he had gotten the upper hand on Sam Puckett.

At the same time, he couldn't help but also feel a tiny stab of disappointment. He _had_ won. Sam had come on to him just to fool him. But that was just it. Sam had come on to him. Just to fool him. Was it so wrong to feel mildly miffed at this? To feel, almost...cheated?

Victory and disappointment grappled within Freddie's skull as he crossed the hallway. Personally, he rooted for victory. When his hand had reached the doorknob to 8-D however, victory lost. He hung his head in the air.

He had to go back. Like it or not, he had to talk to Sam about this. He didn't know what he was going to say. All he did know was that lately, being around Sam sometimes made him feel a little...strange. Maybe, if he could figure out some way to talk about this without actually talking about it (this was Sam after all), it would help.

Also, since she had kissed him twice now and was the only girl to have done so, he deserved to know whether he was any good at it.

When Freddie opened the door to the Shay's, he saw that Sam and Carly were gone. A great weight lifted from Freddie's chest. It appeared he wouldn't have to go through with it after all. At least not today. _I guess I can wait a little longer to talk to her. I probably won't be able to get a word in edgewise anyway._

Freddie would have to wait nearly a year before he had his 'talk' with Sam. He would get more than a word in edgewise, and it would take place during a rather violent thunderstorm.

Later that night, something occurred to Freddie. He had grown wise to the fact that when he experienced those odd chest pains, they only happened in the presence of Sam. But on several occasions over the past week, he had been with the blonde and hadn't felt a thing. Not anytime during their date, when they danced or even when they kissed.

_Well, looks like my Sam-induced acid-reflux has finally vanished_.

How very wrong he was.

* * *

><p>The shopping cart trundled across the tile floor of <em>Hey<em> _Food_. It's owner guided it purposefully to the dry foods section. On the third shelf, next to the packages of peanut-butter crackers, rested the intent of purchase. This item wasn't on the grocery list of the person pushing the shopping cart, but that failed to make it any less important.

"Sure are buying a lot of junk food lately, aren't you Freddie?" asked Maude, the old clerk who handled just about every transaction Freddie had made at _Hey Food_ since the dawn of time. She squinted from behind her spectacles, reading the label of a particular item. _Porta-bacon. The bacon you can eat right out of the bag. _"Any reason why?"

Freddie's composure remained nonchalant.

"None in particular."

* * *

><p>Freddie Benson was sitting on his stool in Environmental Science, daydreaming, when Mr. Henning called on him.<p>

"Freddie, is something bothering you?"

Nothing was bothering Freddie until Mr. Henning had interrupted him. Once Mr. Henning had, Freddie realized that yes, something was in fact bothering him.

He had been daydreaming about Carly of course. But, against his own will, those daydreams were themselves interrupted by different ones. Ones featuring a certain blonde-haired girl, who occupied a stool at the lab station two rows behind him. These daydreams weren't romantic per se, but they _were_ kind of distracting.

Not knowing what else to do, Freddie shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

"No."

* * *

><p>Thank <em>God<em> for puberty. Had it not been for that upsurge in testosterone, Freddie may not have been able to out-wrestle Carly. If he had been unable to out-wrestle Carly, then he never would have gotten the upper hand on her, and she may have called Sam right there and then and spilled the beans. And if this had happened, Sam would have squished the stuffing out of Freddie, like a toddler who plays too hard with a teddy-bear.

For now, Sam didn't know that Carly knew that he and Sam had kissed. This meant Freddie was safe. At least for now. He'd have to keep a close eye on Carly to make sure things stayed that way. Not only did Freddie want to avoid getting destroyed however; he didn't want to break his promise to Sam. Oddly, that vow they had made on _that_ night resonated with him, and he felt honor-bound to uphold it. Plus, he and Sam didn't seem to fight as much these days, and Freddie found that he liked that.

Freddie stopped his ruminating. A very unsettling thought popped into his mind. He froze. Physically froze.

He and Carly had just been rolling on the floor. In very compromising positions. In very sensual positions. The kind of positions that should have pumped his blood so much with primal lust, he shouldn't have been able to see straight. Yet...

_I didn't feel anything_. Freddie had been so focused on retaining his secret, he had not felt one ounce of attraction toward the brunette, who was supposedly the love of his life. But with Sam, while they twirled in front of those big speakers with candy canes perched in their mouths...

True, he had been distracted during his struggle with Carly, and true, his feelings for Carly were, as he put them, more mature. Even Freddie had to admit though, that this line of reasoning could only be stretched so far.

* * *

><p>"Hey."<p>

Sam turned around to face Freddie. The two were standing outside of 8-C, tape-free at last. Thanks were in order to the blonde's newly refurbished teeth. Their secret had been spilled, and Sam had come within a hair's length of beating Freddie to a pulp, but at least they were no longer restricted.

Sam looked at Freddie. She waited for him to continue.

The question burning inside of Freddie could be held at bay no more. Ever since the blonde (or was it her twin sister; he was beginning to have his suspicions) had kissed him during that date, the question boiled with an increasingly uncomfortable heat. It had to come out. Maybe now, he could finally have that talk with Sam.

"So _did_ you like it?"

The blonde peered at Freddie questionably, but Freddie narrowed his eyes at her in response. She wasn't playing dumb with him. She knew what he was talking about, and he knew that she knew what he was talking about.

"Look, I know we've avoided it. I know it makes you uncomfortable. It makes you feel any better, it makes _me_ a little uncomfortable too. But Sam, if we keep locking it away like this, I don't think it's going to do either one of us a whole lot of good. The thing is..." Freddie's frustration became evident in his eyes and his voice. "The thing is _I _kind of want to know too, okay?"

A dark look inhabited Sam's features. She _could_ play dumb, or defensive, or uncaring, or any number of methods she had devised over the years to maintain her walls. But at the end of the day, Freddie's question would linger in the air, like an annoying feather that no amount of wind could blow away. Emotions competed on her countenance. Lines appeared and reappeared. Having her and Freddie's secret exposed like that had not put her in a good mood.

"Yes, alright?" Sam snapped. "I liked it! Does that make you happy?"

Sam spun on her heel and stormed away. Freddie wanted to call out, but just then, a bright bolt of pain, stronger than any he had yet experienced, hit him square in the chest. It stunned him for a second. He quickly recovered however, not wanting Sam to get out of sight.

"I-I liked it too!"

The blonde stopped. A few seconds passed, and she didn't appear to be moving anytime soon. Encouraged, Freddie walked up to her and kept talking.

"I liked it too," he repeated. "I know it sounds stupid, but I've been worrying a lot about it since then. I thought that..." Freddie trailed off. He sighed. "I thought that I might be really bad at it."

Sam turned around. Freddie was standing right in front of her now. The blonde rolled her eyes. "You're such a dimbo Benson."

Freddie stared at her. She had effectively broken his train of thought.

"It's not about how _good_ you are at it," Sam said, as if believing the contrary was incredibly stupid. "It's...you know... ...who you're doing it with."

Sam's eyes went to the side after she had said this. She became extremely quiet. Freddie became quiet as well. The silence between the two was so palpable. So loud. Inside their heads however, Sam's statement buzzed like industrial lawn equipment.

"Wanna go get a smoothie?" Sam asked in a flat voice.

"Yes please," came Freddie's hollow reply. Any suggestion seemed like a good idea, given the intense, awkward silence that had just passed.

The two walked down the hall, quiet still, though no longer awkwardly so. Sam eventually broke the ice again.

"You _did_ take a long time to lean though."

"It was my first time. At least _my_ lips didn't taste like meatballs!"

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

It wasn't quite the talk Freddie had wanted. He felt better though afterward. For now anyway.

From that day forward, Freddie and Sam began to hang out together a lot more.

Inside room 8-C, Carly was sitting on the couch. The one her, Sam and Freddie always sat on. Carly sat on that couch, thinking, until she whipped out her phone and saw that she had lost track of time.

* * *

><p>Carly was walking down the eighth floor, heading back to the loft. She had the munchies, so she went to the vending machine to grab a snack. Normally she'd eat whatever Spencer bought, but there was nothing in the fridge or in the cupboards, and it just felt plain wrong to watch television without nibbling on a treat. When she reached the intersection between 8-C and 8-D, the door to Freddie's apartment swung open.<p>

"Oh, hey Freddie," Carly said upon seeing her friend. No doubt, the boy had been waiting for her return through his peephole, and now he wanted to join her in whatever she had been doing. Carly didn't mind. His crush had toned down significantly, and she had gotten sort of used to it. Freddie had mellowed out a lot since they begun shooting the webshow. He had always been a buddy, but now, she regarded him as more of an equal.

In other words, Freddie was growing up.

"Celebrities Underwater is on five minutes. Wanna come in?"

The Benson boy-soon-to-be-man shook his head. "Sorry," he said, sincerely enough, "but I told Sam I was going to meet her at Inside Out Burger."

Carly frowned. "When did you and Sam start meeting at Inside Out Burger?"

Freddie shrugged. "I dunno. We always go there Tuesday night." Freddie withdrew his attention from Carly to his Pear Phone, which he held in his hands. He smirked at the text message he received. It was from Sam. "I'll be back in an hour or so. I'm sure Sam will want to come by afterward."

Carly watched as Freddie shot her his usual, Freddie-smile, and then made his way down the hall, punching the keys on his phone.

_How can they argue every day and hang out at the same time? And why didn't Sam tell me about this? The three of us always hang out together._

The brunette supposed that she was still paranoid after finding out that Sam and Freddie had covered up their kiss. Those two _had_ sort of become friends. In their own, dysfunctional way. On second thought, perhaps it wasn't so unusual that they did something without her.

_Yeah, I'm just being paranoid. _Carly laughed to herself as she went to open the door to 8-C. _Freddie should spend some time around another girl. He should...stop thinking about me so much._

Her gaze traveled to the floor.

_Because I'll never feel the same way about him. And that will never change._

* * *

><p>Freddie didn't think he could take another second of this movie. <em>Slumbering in Seattle <em>had to be one of the stupidest films ever made. He found it odd that Carly could lambaste cheesy romance flicks, and even parody them on iCarly, yet enjoyed so-called serious romance pictures like this one. It seemed that lately, he was finding out a lot of things about Carly that he thought were odd. Things he had never noticed before.

A buzzing emanated in Freddie's pocket. He withdrew his Pear phone from his jeans and clicked the touchscreeen with a finger. The contents of a text message filled the display.

'Kill me. Now.'

Freddie smirked. The message was from Sam. He couldn't see the blonde since she was sitting on the other side of Carly, who was sitting in between Sam and Freddie. Freddie was about to punch in a response when his phone buzzed again. Another message from Sam.

'Would it kill Carly if we let her enjoy this alone?'

The smile on the Benson boy's face deepened.

X

"_Hehe. It's Boogie time."_

On-screen, the diabolical form of Boogie Bear closed in on the woman, a big-breasted blonde, who was pinned against a wall with her hands shielding her face.

"Now that's more like it," Sam said.

"Totally," Freddie agreed.

Before he even knew what was happening, Freddie's left arm extended. It had almost reached the back of Sam's chair when its owner stopped it. Freddie nearly laughed out loud. _Thank God she didn't see that_. Thinking it had just been a reflex, he put his left arm back on his lap, where it belonged.

* * *

><p>He could not believe it. He could NOT believe it. It had been just him and Carly left at The Groovy Smoothie, after Magic Malika had disappeared (literally) and Carly had shouted Austin out the door.<p>

'And then there were two,' he had said.

'Yeah,' Carly replied. 'Thank God.'

Carly's response was what really motivated him. Never before had she expressed gratitude at being alone with him. This puzzled one part of Freddie's mind. It seemed sort of out of character for his dark-haired friend. The other part of Freddie's mind though, the one that clung onto a somewhat diminished yet strong crush on Carly, overpowered the puzzled part and went in for the kill.

So now they swayed, toe-to-toe. No one would have ever bet on it, but Carly Shay had willingly, almost happily, agreed to dance with Fredward Benson. In an even more shocking development, she actually nestled her head against his shoulder. It was the first step. After years of constant, gut-wrenching rejection, Freddie had finally set one foot in the door. He _knew_ it would happen. It was love at first sight; it _had_ to mean something. And oh sweet heavens, he had been right all along. Hallelujah! Even T-bo had acknowledged it. He had smiled at him, _knowingly, _and turned up the music just like he road only became easier from here. Pretty soon their friendship would blossom, and they'd be spending all their time together, and they'd watch movies late at night, and hold hands once or twice just to try it out, and...

And...

And...

_And why am I not more excited?_ Freddie practically screamed inside his head. He was content. He was happy. He was perhaps a little nervous, as he usually was at being in close proximity with females. But somehow his body had betrayed him. His heart wasn't pounding, his blood wasn't rushing, and he wasn't bursting at the seams with overwhelming joy.

_This doesn't make sense. _As he and Carly rocked side to side, the smile that had been on his lips vanished. His momentary happiness began to fade. _I know I should be more excited. I WANT to be more excited. But for some reason, I just can't. Am I just in shock? And...and WHY, why NOW of all times, have I just started thinking about candy canes again? _

A red hot poker stuck Freddie in the chest. The Benson boy yelped and released Carly.

"Freddie?" Carly exclaimed. "What's wrong?"

Freddie's heart-rate tripled briefly, then returned to a more normal clip. Just one of his chest pains. He had talked to his doctor again about it recently, and the doctor had assured Freddie that they were probably caused by benign palpitations, which apparently were quite common in males his age. Nothing to be worried about.

_Wait a minute. Chest pains?_ He searched the surrounding area, expecting to see a mane of blonde hair. He found no such thing. _That's odd. I could have sworn they only happen when she's around._

"Freddie!" Carly's sharp voice pierced Freddie's thoughts. Shaken out his reverie, he glanced at the brunette. Concern lined her features. "What's wrong?"

"N-nothing," Freddie said. "I thought I heard someone say my name."

"There's _no one_ else here," Carly insisted. She could not suppress the thinnest sliver of irritation. Not just at the fact that Freddie was obviously lying to her, or that he looked like he might have been hurt. But that in spite of herself, she was kind of enjoying their dance.

* * *

><p>Their dance was just a warm-up.<p>

After Freddie pushed Carly out of the way and saved her life, the brunette fell for him like a ton of bricks. Gone were her wishes for Freddie to spend more time around 'another girl.' Even her mild enjoyment over dancing really close to the tech producer at the Groovy Smoothie had dissipated. Now, she just wanted to suck his lips off. How very funny life was. That she had fallen for him after all.

By the first kiss, Freddie knew something was...off. It just didn't seem right. Where had all this affection come from? He wanted to believe that Carly had been repressing it all these years, and that now it was finally pouring out, but even that one part of Freddie, that part that clung onto that dwindling crush, knew this wasn't the case.

So like Lord Gibson had once suggested, Freddie decided to stop worrying about 'the chicks.' Instead, he relaxed and allowed himself to enjoy his new relationship with Carly. He did a pretty good job of this. Until Sam called him the boy-equivalent of bacon.

* * *

><p>Freddie Benson was sitting on his stool in Environmental Science, thinking, when Mr. Henning called on him.<p>

"Freddie, is something bothering you?"

Something was sure as heck bothering Freddie. Ten minutes ago, Sam had just told him he was a slab of meat. That the love of his life was not in love with him, but only thought she was. His dream-come-true was slowly turning into a nightmare. Like the ones he suspected he got in the middle of the night, but could never remember.

And oh, how his heart _hurt_ when Sam looked him in the eyes and told him about Carly.

The best that he could, Freddie shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.

"No."

* * *

><p><em>To be continued...<em>

* * *

><p><strong>Disclaimer - I do not own iCarly, it's characters, nor any other shows, characters, music, andor movies that may be referenced.**

**AN: This chap was a bit different, but I think the story was ready for it and I hoped you guys liked it. I had wanted to make it one chap, but it just got away from me. The next part will pick up right where this one left off. After next chapter will be another two-parter, followed by build-up chapter, and THEN, what will be the beginning of what will probably be the three-part finale. I have a pretty clear vision of the rest of the story, and I really think you guys are going to like it. The pace will pick up, and the story will get more intense at parts, but never fear my lovelies. Old Arch knows exactly what he's doing, mwahaha. Thank you again for all the feedback!  
><strong>


	11. The Two Columns: Rise and Fall Part 2

**The Two Columns: Rise and Fall - Part Two**

By the time Freddie went home after school, played a few online games (once again losing spectacularly to Lord Gibson), and visited his favorite model from the Gloria's Secret website, he was feeling a lot better. Not completely, since somewhere in the dungeon of Freddie's mind, Dark Freddie repeated Sam's warning with a nauseous sense of glee, but better enough. Freddie's disposition improved to the point where he could ignore that insidious voice on a conscious level, though not necessarily on a subconscious one.

As he rode up the elevator to the studio, where Carly would be waiting for him, he found it increasingly difficult to quell his dark alter-ego. That voice bobbled at the rim of awareness, threatening to take over. Freddie wouldn't let it. He wasn't going to do this to himself. He was going to enjoy every minute of his relationship with Carly come hell or high water. No matter how much it stormed inside his brain. Or outside it for that matter. It had been raining and thundering all week.

It only took ten seconds in the iCarly studio, dialogging with Carly, for Freddie to realize that his hopes were sunk. Sam had been right all along. Carly wasn't so much interested in him as her idea of him, which had transitioned from geeky techno-nerd neighbor to life-saving hero. Perhaps this had even been fueled by other things, such as his growth, both physical and emotional, their dance at The Groovy Smoothie the other night, the weakening of Freddie's formerly obsessive crush. Either way...

_This is all wrong_, Freddie thought while he was in the studio with Carly. _Wrong, wrong, wrong. _

So he did the only thing a boy who always thought with his heart would do. He ended it. He did it with all the gentility and class he could muster, and fortunately, Carly appeared to take it quite well. While he had done it, he experienced a brief period of peace. It surprised him, how serene he felt while actually performing the deed.

He gave himself a way out of course. The first column had not finished falling yet. 'No, I do,' he had said when Carly asked if he wanted to date her. To prove this, he and (presumably) Carly would wait a while, and, if the gears were still turning by that point, they would resume where they had left off.

Freddie knew though that this was probably it. He had just flushed what would most likely be his only chance with Carly Shay down the toilet. As the elevator door closed and the cables dragged the cart down the shaft, his peace eroded and the reality of what he had just done hit him like a lead weight.

* * *

><p>When the elevator doors opened again, it was a very solemn Freddie that trudged out. He carried every pound of the heavy mass that had hit him. He entered the Shay's living room and went right past the eldest Shay, barely acknowledging him.<p>

"Hey, Freddo," Spencer greeted. He stood in the kitchen next to the island counter, snacking on a bowl of grapes. Spencer watched as the boy walked by. Spencer's lips, which had been curved in their characteristic smile, molded into a concerned frown. Not much got by the surprisingly perceptive man. "Freddo?"

The defeated, expressionless look Freddie gave Spencer told him everything. Spencer had had his own doubts about the relationship, and did not expect it to last, but kept quiet and positive about it for the sake of Carly and Freddie. He offered the Benson boy a small, conciliatory smile. Being Carly's brother, he was probably not the best candidate to talk to Freddie about what had just happened.

"See you tomorrow?" Spencer asked, hoping he sounded nonchalant.

Freddie nodded at Spencer. He was hurt, but he would be okay. That latter part was the important thing. He withdrew his attention from Spencer and headed for the door. Freddie wanted to get out of the loft more and more with every passing second. When he opened the door though, instead of finding a frame full of empty air, he found a frame full of Sam Puckett.

"You're in my way," Sam said. Freddie let her brush past him with no resistance. His only desire was the familiar comfort of his bedroom. Ignoring the customary ache in his heart, he shuffled quietly toward 8-D.

Sam stayed in the Shay's loft a grand total of four seconds. Soon upon entering, her eyes interlocked with Spencer's. Information passed wordlessly from one set of lights to the other. The blonde turned around. She caught Freddie before he reached his apartment door.

"What's with you?" she asked his back. She hadn't said it in an unkind way.

"Like you don't know," Freddie responded. He kept his posterior to the blonde.

_Fine then. If that's the way you wanna play it_. "Look Benson, if there's something on your mind," Sam began. She grabbed Freddie's limp form by the shoulder and forced him around, so that he faced her. "Then spill."

Freddie's head lolled to the side at first. He seemed uninterested in any of the blonde's words. Eventually though, the muscles clenched in his jaw. Freddie gradually came back to life.

"You were right okay?" he exclaimed. His arms went out at his sides. "Carly didn't really love me. She never loved me, she never will, I feel all weird and mixed up inside, and now I just wanna be left alone."

"Why?" Sam said. She betrayed not one ounce of sympathy. "So you can go waste time in your room feeling sorry for yourself. This is a _good_ thing. Maybe you're finally wisening up you big dork!"

"You don't get it!" Freddie said. All his confused, uncertain, and disappointed emotions rose to the surface. He could barely control them. "I've loved her for three, and a half, years! Since the moment I saw her." Freddie stared directly at Sam when he said this. In a ruthless sort of way, he was glad to see that her twin sapphires had finally donned the thinnest sheet of pain. "This whole time I held out for her, hoping that one day she'd love me back. But this last couple of months, I don't know if I like her as much now as I used to. And this past week, when I finally had everything that I ever dreamed of, it was just all...wrong. She didn't like me the way she was supposed to, I didn't like _her_ the way _I_ was supposed to, I think I'm having _different_ dreams now, and..."

Freddie gripped his hair with his hands. He didn't want to break down in front of Sam. He didn't even want to shed a tear in front of her. But try though he might, he was so confused, and worried, and unsure, that two small droplets of moisture began to trail down each respective cheek. He looked at Sam, not knowing what else to do or say.

"Don't you understand?" he asked quietly. A foolish question he thought once it had departed from his lips. What in their history together made him think that Sam would?

The blonde seemed unresponsive in the beginning. Freddie feared he had gotten too personal, and that this would repel Sam. He wanted her to understand. He wished she would understand. Judging from her reaction however, she was a moment's decision from walking away and leaving him to wallow in his misery.

As it turned out, Sam would do no such thing. While Freddie thought she was doing nothing, she in fact was tucking her hands inside the sleeves of her shirt, so that she had about three inches of slack for each sleeve. When she had done this, and saw that Freddie had gone quiet and that she had his attention, she moved up to him. She stood very close. Taking the edge of her right sleeve, she gently pressed it against Freddie's right cheek and removed the tear. She then took her left sleeve, gently pressed it against Freddie's left cheek, and removed that tear as well, wearing an odd frown while she did this. She stared at Freddie afterward, oceanic eyes dulled beyond even sympathy. Their dreary light shone with empathy.

"Maybe," Sam said in a reluctant tone. She peered at the ground, nodding to herself. "Maybe I do understand."

Freddie sniffed. The breakdown had been staved off. Barely, but it had been denied nevertheless. He gazed at the ground as well. He still wasn't sure what to do or say.

"C'mon," Sam said. She was looking at Freddie again. "Let's go get a smoothie. That worked pretty well back in sixth grade, right?" Sam took a few steps away, and then stopped. Freddie had not moved a foot. Keeping her cool for once, Sam grabbed Freddie by the sleeve and lightly tugged him along. "C'mon," she repeated. "Let's go."

"We don't have our raincoats," Freddie said after several paces. Sam threw him a sidelong look. Her empathetic facade had already begun dissolving.

"It's not that bad of a storm Benson. Besides, what fun is it if you don't get a little wet once in a while?"

Sam was right. Getting a little wet once in a while did help. It certainly helped that evening, where the prospect of what his mother would say at the sight of his soaked clothes diminished his throbbing grief over Carly. It certainly helped when he and Sam entered The Groovy Smoothie, and Freddie saw a stray lock of drenched hair clinging to Sam's jawline, finding that he sort of liked the way it looked.

Sam was also right about the storm. The one that had dumped on Seattle all week wasn't that bad. It was nothing, compared to the monster that was coming. Within the year, Freddie would return to the iCarly studio for another decisive face-off.

And it wouldn't be with Carly.

* * *

><p>"I think he was right," Carly told Spencer.<p>

They had been sitting on the couch, talking for the better part of a half-hour. The brunette had come down shortly after Freddie had exited the loft. When she found Spencer standing next to the island counter, with a bowl of unfinished grapes and a peculiar expression on his face, she had asked if he had seen Freddie, and they eventually wound up sitting in front of an idle television. Spencer's serious, big brother side quickly took over. This didn't happen often, but Spencer could tell that tonight he would need it.

"Maybe he was," Spencer said in reply. Freddie of course had been right. Carly was not truly in love with him. Her older brother believed, however, that she should come to that conclusion on her own.

Still, there was nothing wrong if he helped guide her along the way.

"Look, I know it's confusing. Fredddo's...growing up. He's not some creepy little dude spying at you out of his peephole anymore."

"He still does that," Carly admitted reluctantly.

"Yeah, I know," Spencer conceded. _Wish I had thought of that when I was his age._ "The point is, he's been going through some changes and I think you've started to realize that. And, maybe you got a little jealous when you find out that him and Sam kissed. Or that now, he's not paying as much attention to you as he used to."

"Yeah," Carly said. There was a kernel of truth in everything that Spencer had said, as much as she wanted to ignore it. She almost hated herself now. What she had done, her lack of foresight, had probably hurt Freddie. The guilt she felt after he had broken his body to save hers returned. At the same time, although it made her feel even more guilty, she felt somewhat relieved. The sky wasn't falling after all. She hadn't fallen in love with Freddie.

"You're growin' up too," Spencer said, smiling as he tousled his sister's hair. Carly giggled back at him, in spite of herself. "You're goin' through some changes, and some of them are difficult to understand. But you know I'm always here for you, right?"

Carly nodded. She loved her big brother. It was moments like this that she remembered just how much.

"So are we good?" Spencer asked.

"Yeah."

"Can we stop talking now?"

Carly frowned. She slowly nodded again. "...Yeah?"

"Good, 'cause those grapes went right through me."

Spencer vaulted from the couch and zoomed for the bathroom, leaving his sister chuckling, shaking her head, and thinking.

* * *

><p>The first column fell a little more each day. It had taken a deep tumble during that one week, during Freddie and Carly's short-lived relationship, but it attained a steadier pace in the weeks and months that followed. Freddie noticed its downward progression in bits and pieces. On one day, he would discover that Carly's smile was not quite as radiant as he used to believe. On another, while watching TV with Carly and Spencer on a typical Sunday night, he decided to head out early. For no particular reason. He just wanted to go to his room and do other things. The old Freddie, the unwounded Freddie, would never have left Carly to go do something else.<p>

As for the second column, it rose with the velocity of a runaway freight train. And the stealth of a practiced hunter. Freddie only noticed this in bits and pieces as well. In the beginning anyway. On one day, he saw that Sam's stool in Environmental Science was empty, that she had stayed home sick, and this knowledge prevented him from properly concentrating during all his other classes. On another, he caught sight of one of Sam's hands and couldn't help but thinking about how small it was, and how it would feel to hold it.

While the mostly oblivious boy went about his day, that wound in his heart festered. Soon, the pain had spread throughout his chest, and even to his shoulders and upper arms. The thunderbolt was recharging.

Or maybe, it had never stopped. Maybe, when it had dealt that first blow on the fire escape and spilled his soul-juice all over the place, it had somehow kept going, pulsing more strongly with each beat of his damaged organ.

Whatever the case, it was only a matter of time. Little by little, day by day, Freddie's feelings for Sam grew. Eventually, he would have to face this.

He would fight it. He would deny it. But that storm was coming. Oh baby, it was coming. The thunderbolt would strike again.

Except that next time, it would show no mercy.

* * *

><p><em>Over several more months...<em>

* * *

><p>The fight between Sam and Carly was definitely the worst one. Their friendship had actually ended. iCarly, for a short period of time, had actually ended. Once more however, with help from their tech producer, they patched things up.<p>

The fight was different. It was a lot more...genuine. When Sam and Carly traded barbs during this one, they went for the throat. And it had all started with minor annoyances they found in each other's character. Annoyances which were brought to full, painful attention through their interaction with Fleck and Dave. Annoyances that, although otherwise unimportant and encountered on a regular basis, had grown into intolerable aggravations. How odd, that something so small could evolve into something so large.

Except maybe it wasn't so odd. Maybe there was more to it than met the eye. Maybe, it wasn't such a coincidence that this fight, the worst fight, occurred shortly after Freddie and Carly's brief relationship. Maybe, during those days when Freddie and Carly were holding hands and smooching in the halls, Sam never quite had her say. Her full say, more than comparing nerds to bacon. Maybe, the blonde was slightly angry at her best friend, for mistaking her feelings and confusing Freddie as well, putting the boy through crab that he didn't need. Maybe, just maybe, she was even considering calling off their fight and letting bygones be bygones, but quickly quashed this idea when Carly reminded her so brazenly that Freddie loved her. What words the brunette had chosen. And maybe, just maybe-maybe-maybe, her rage multiplied when she had seen Freddie's warning look about having him choose sides, because she knew full well _who_ he'd join, even if it was over some sense of loyalty that she knew he didn't even feel anymore, but only retained out of habit.

Maybe.

* * *

><p>Freddie was sitting at his stool in Environmental Science...and was actually paying attention.<p>

He had gotten over the grief from his failed relationship with Carly, Sam and Carly were friends again, and the show was back on track. He and Sam were talking again too, which he found he missed terribly during the schism between the webstars. And, impossible though it seemed at first, he felt like he was finally starting to get over his maniacal crush on Carly.

In short, life was good.

Mr. Henning was beyond relieved. The boy had been daydreaming and zoning out in his class all semester, and he had just about had it with Freddie's limited attention span. Maybe now he would finally learn something.

As for Puckett...well, she never paid attention in class. Henning wasn't holding out for any miracles on that one. She daydreamed and zoned out ten times more than Freddie ever did. Oddly, every now and then, he thought he caught her peeking at the Benson boy. A split-second here, split-second there. Though perhaps this was just Henning's imagination. He didn't understand young people these days anyway.

* * *

><p>They did things for each other now. Helpful things, every once in a while. When Sam threw a tantrum on the couch and left her can of soup behind, Freddie brought it over to her. When Freddie got a fork hurled into his flesh by an ornery former popstar, Sam yanked it out.<p>

Today for instance...

"Here you are Princess Puckett." Freddie was standing next to his locker, holding a laptop with both hands. The laptop however did not belong to him. Its true owner was the blond girl, who was standing in front of Freddie. "Good as new." He handed the computer over to the blonde.

"Does it work?" Sam asked. Her laptop had been malfunctioning for the past two weeks. Unable to fix it herself, and having reached the point where her frustration outweighed her pride, she had given it to Freddie.

The Benson boy beamed smugly at the blonde. "Oh _yeah_. I gave it a new processor and everything. This baby runs like a beast now!"

"Does it _work_?" Sam snapped.

"Yes!" Freddie exclaimed, equally loud.

Sam's eyes widened in relief. "Finally. I thought I was gonna have to get a new one."

Freddie grinned at her. He had gotten so into revamping Sam's laptop that he forgot to keep track of time, or how much money he spent on spare parts. What he had registered was that this was a unique chance to be of some use to his friend. To show off a little perhaps. As their friendship had grown, Sam's opinion of him became more important to Freddie. Important enough that he didn't even need a contract these days to perform a techie favor for her, like when Sam wanted him to bolster her website.

"No ma'am," Freddie told her. "Your laptop's been Fredified."

Sam snorted at Freddie's bad joke. Her gaze went downward, and in an very unclear voice, she mumbled: "Maybe some day you'll want to Fredify me."

"What was that?" For Freddie heard noise, but nothing intelligible.

Sam rolled her eyes. "Nothing." Her brows then rose sharply. "Oh hey, wait." The blonde thrust a hand in her pocket. The crinkling of plastic ensued, followed by the withdrawal of an aptly plastic bag. The clear bag contained a dozen red strips of meat. On the bag was a black header, which bore white words in an elegant cursive script that said: 'Bolivian Porta-bacon.' Sam held out the bag so Freddie could see it.

"Bacon?" Freddie said. "Bolivian _Porta_-bacon?"

"Yep," Sam said. "Mama knows how to reward her subjects."

"I'm surprised you haven't scarfed it down already," Freddie said. He meant it too. "Why are you offering it to me anyway; isn't that your favorite kind?"

"Fine, if you don't want it, don't take it." Sam cradled the bag against her chest. "I just figured you might be interested in Bolivian bacon," she continued, staring at the bag as she spoke. "Since I mentioned it before. You know, bacon so good it can make someone..." Sam's gaze shifted to the side. "...think they're in love."

Freddie snatched the bag out of Sam's intimate embrace. He chuckled to himself while he ripped it open. "C'mon Sam, no bacon can be that good."

"Freddie wait!" Sam tried to swipe the bag away, but she was too late. Freddie had already shoveled the first strip into his mouth. Not longer after, his entire body froze. Sam recognized that rigid stance.

"Oh man," she moaned to herself. Setting her laptop down at a safe distance away, she hurried back to Freddie and clasped him by the arms. First-time consumers of Bolivian bacon had to be monitored very closely. Their reactions to the unparalleled savory goodness could be...intense.

"Oh...my..." Freddie garbled through a mouthful of meat. His eyes resembled those from a character in a horror movie, who at long last has come face-to-face with the killer.

"Can you hear me?" Sam demanded. She shook Freddie for emphasis. "Are you there?"

"So...good. Can't...handle..." Freddie began quivering violently.

"Stay with me Benson. If you don't come out of this on your own, I'm going to have to give you a sedative."

Freddie came out of it on his own alright. When he did, he grabbed Sam by _her_ arms and pinned her against the lockers. Endorphins rushed his brain. Sam's hair had spilled over her face, so that one eye was covered just like that time at the mall.

"I think I love you!" a possessed Freddie announced. He was standing so close to her that Sam could feel his breath.

"I..." The syllable had escaped out of Sam's mouth before she could stop it. A faint blush tinged her cheeks. If Freddie had ever seen Sam blush before, he might have recognized it. If his brain hadn't been assaulted by chemical pleasure at the moment, he may have seen it. Either way, the gesture was lost on the tech producer.

Sam came out of her daze as well. Seizing Freddie by the shoulders a second time, she whipped him around and slammed him into the lockers. Their positions reversed.

"_Snap_ out of it!"

* * *

><p>Freddie didn't require foreign bacon for this. For one glorious half-hour, the power to the Bushwell had returned. They had just started to get comfortable when it went off again. Carly and Spencer had left to canvass the building, just in case someone else had gotten their hands on a generator and was trying to keep it to themselves. Freddie and Sam meanwhile lay on the couch like slugs, waiting for either the Shays to bring them news of salvation, or to simply lay there and expire. Whichever came first.<p>

This brought Freddie to his current problem. He was laying on the sofa, next to a girl, alone. Said girl was wearing a tank and very short shorts. It had been a long time since he had seen this much of said girl. And now, she was beginning to sweat, which once Dark Freddie took note of, he wouldn't let him forget.

"Massage my leg, will ya?"

One of Sam's bare thighs landed on Freddie's lap. Freddie stared numbly at the limb. Oh, this wasn't happening. This so wasn't happening. It was all just a great big joke, fabricated by the gods, who were watching this while they sat on their clouds in the sky and screeched themselves into hysterics.

"I think the heat gave me cramps. Now that that old man is gone, I guess you'll have to fill his shoes. Rub it hard too, 'kay?"

_Hah!_ Dark Freddie cackled. _She said 'hard.' 'Hard!'_

_Shut UP!_ Freddie told his evil counterpart. _How many times do I have to tell you it's just hormones! There's nothing else to it! Besides, maybe that bacon's still having an effect!_

_That's a lie and you know it._

"I'm waiting Frederina."

Freddie gulped. _Okay. I can do this. I'm not gonna chicken out, no siree. I'm a man. And that's just a leg. Sam's leg. I see her legs everyday. I mean, I don't see _this_ much of them everyday, and she doesn't usually plop one on my lap, and I've never professed my love to her in a bacon-induced frenzy before, and..._

Freddie abruptly stopped thinking. As dispassionately as possible, he grabbed Sam's leg and began massaging it as hard as he dared. Sam reclined over the sofa's arm chair, stretching towards the ceiling.

"Oh yeah! Keep it up Fredward. That feels so goooooooooooood!"

"I CAN'T DO THIS!"

The Benson boy threw the offensive leg off of him and leaped to his feet. Sam, who had been tossed off the sofa and onto the ground, stared incredulously at him from a supine position. She scrambled to her own feet. When she had recovered, she closed in on Freddie, glaring steel-blue daggers at him.

"What was _that_ all about?"

It was Sam's turn to receive an incredulous stare.

"What was that all about? I – you – it's..."

Freddie couldn't focus any longer. He spotted a lone drop of perspiration, trailing down Sam's neck. It went past the collar bone, sliding downward, parallel to the strap of her tank. Then it turned. Now it went on a diagonal. Unlike most blobs of sweat, this one never faltered. It kept sliding down, down-down-down, further and further until it headed for, it headed for, the danger zone. Danger zone. It headed for her...

"What's _wrong_ with you?"

"WILL YOU PLEASE TAKE THOSE CLOTHES OFF!"

Sam gaped at him. Stunned at first by the intensity of his outburst, then by the meaning of what he had just said. Her eyes widened.

Freddie slammed a hand over his mouth. His legs quivered horribly, like when he had just swallowed his first helping of Bolivian bacon, though this time he quivered from fear.

"I...I meant to say...I meant to say...change...change your clothes...I..."

_Aw crab! I said it! I just told Puckett to show me her goodies! Slip of the tongue or not, she's gonna kill me. Goodbye world. It's been nice knowin' ya!_

Thankfully, Sam didn't kill Freddie. Instead, her mouth slowly curved into a smile. Then a big smile. Then a big, big smile. She sidled up closer to Freddie, giving him a look that would have made Satan jealous.

"You," she said, poking Freddie in the chest, making his chest and arms ache that familiar dull ache, "think I'm hot. Don't-cha?"

Dark brown eyes blinked very rapidly.

"I knew you were thinking dirty thoughts. That time we danced at the mall. Somewhere deep inside that nerdy, nice-boy exterior is a little Dark Freddie, isn't there?"

_That's me_, Dark Freddie said happily.

Freddie wrenched himself to full awareness. He clasped Sam around the arms. They seemed to be doing that to each other a lot these days.

"_Sam_, look."

Another demonic grin from Sam forced Freddie to remove his hands. Bare arms were better than bare legs, but not by much.

"I'm sorry about the bacon incident, okay? If this is all an attempt to get back at me for that, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to embarrass you, I just, couldn't control myself. I don't _really_ love you."

Something about Sam's face told Freddie he hadn't quite said that right thing. Again. His back became slick with sweat.

"I mean, I love you as a friend. I mean I like you as a friend. Not that anyone couldn't love you as a friend. Like you as a friend. I mean love you as more than a friend. R-romantically. Wh-what I'm trying to say is–"

"I get it okay," Sam said. She patted Freddie on the shoulder, not in a seductive way but in more of a companionable manner. "It was the bacon talking. I been through it too, don't think I don't know what it feels like."

If Freddie wasn't mistaken, he thought Sam sounded kind of...disappointed.

Sam rolled her eyes. "You're alright Benson." She patted him once more on the shoulder and turned away. She then halted in place, back still facing him. "You're still stupid...but you're alright. C'mon." Sam walked toward the exit to the loft. "Let's go see if Carly and Spencer found anyone yet."

Freddie released a massive sigh. His hormones had him in their grip again. Each time, they had grown stronger, but he had managed to escape their prison-hold somehow. This latest one however had been too close for comfort.

"Good. For a moment there, I almost wanted to Fredify you."

"What was that?" Sam asked. Freddie had mumbled that last sentence.

"Nothing!"

* * *

><p>"C'mon!"<p>

"I can't!"

"Put you're back into it!"

"I can't fit it in! The opening, it's just too small!"

"You better fit it in or I'm going to be very upset! Do you think I _want _to buy a new mattress!"

"I'm pushing with all my might! Can't you help? I mean, this thing is so big! It's really a two-person kind of activity!"

Sam groaned like a gorilla. She hoped that when she called Freddie to come over and help lug her new king-size mattress from her front porch to her room, that she could just kick back and watch. Apparently however, the Benson boy lacked the muscle to get the job done.

"Fine, get out of the way and let me do it."

Freddie collapsed on the floor. Sam stepped over him, picked up the mattress, and aimed it at her door. Freddie hadn't the strength to turn it on it's side, so he had resorted to trying to push it through by sheer force.

"Honestly Benson, would it kill you to work out once in a while?"

* * *

><p>"Up-up-up. Aren't you forgetting something?"<p>

Freddie growled in his throat. He was sitting on a blue-green bench, ready to start his first official set of bench press exercises, with Gibby as his spotter. Except that Gibby was more than his spotter. Gibby was his trainer.

"No _Gibby_, I _don't_ think I'm forgetting something! I warmed up properly, drank approximately two ounces water, and practiced the right form." Freddie bent his arms at the elbows, forming two ninety-degree angles.

"Yeah. And you forgot one thing."

"What are you–"

Freddie saw that Gibby was staring at Freddie's shirt. Unlike his trainee, the Gibson boy was already shirtless.

"Aw Gibby, do I have to?" Freddie peered around at the Bushwell Plaza's exercise room. There weren't many other people using the facilities, but there were some, and one of them was female. "There's a girl here."

"Hey," Gibby said, in a tone that would accept no excuses. "If you want to work out the Gibby way, then you have to work out, _the Gibby way._ Now take it off!"

Miserably, Freddie doffed his shirt. Humiliating though it was, he couldn't embarrass himself in front of Sam again.

He'd show her who worked out every once in a while.

* * *

><p>"Oh, hey Sam."<p>

Freddie leaned with one arm against the wall of the iCarly studio, staring at Sam, who had just entered. He had worn a shirt with very short sleeves that day, and made sure that his right arm, the better toned arm, was the arm he leaned against. He contracted his triceps needlessly.

"Do you know where Carly is?" Sam asked.

Freddie shrugged. "Don't know."

"Ugh." Sam started to leave.

"Hey."

The blonde stilled. She peered at the Benson boy.

"So, you uh, you notice anything? You know, anything...different?"

Freddie contracted his muscles more forcefully.

"About what?"

"Oh I don't know." Freddie gazed idly around the studio, protruding his lower lip. "Anything. Anything at all. Maybe about me?"

Sam's features tightened. Her eyes swept over Freddie's appearance. A curious light flickered to life inside them. They moved up and down his form, studying him carefully.

_That's it. That's it. Go to the arms. Those are the parts I've worked the hardest on. Come on. Yes, yes! Look you blonde-headed demon. Look to your devilish heart's content! Wait. No wait. You're going too high. That's too high. What are you-  
><em>

"Oh, did you get a haircut?"

The blonde had said it in a nice voice too. It seemed that she had chosen to be less of a demon today, and had actually tried giving Freddie a genuine compliment. Though this in itself was good news, Freddie was far from pleased.

"Y-yeah! Gibby's grandpa cut it. You know, after he did such a nice job with Spencer, I couldn't resist."

* * *

><p>"Do you want it?"<p>

"I want it!"

"Do you want it?"

"I want it!"

"DO YOU WANT IT!"

"I WANT IT!"

With all of his savage force, Freddie shoved the barbell into the air, into Gibby's hands, who guided it onto the metal holders. Freddie sat upright, huffing and puffing, exhausted victory inscribed on his countenance.

"Jeez Benson," Gibby said. He rarely praised Freddie during their workout sessions, but even he had been impressed with Freddie's recent efforts. "What's been driving you lately?"

Freddie wiped the sweat off his brow, and said nothing.

* * *

><p>It was all just an act now. He didn't hate her. Not anymore. Not even a little bit. He just reacted to her that way because...well, he always had.<p>

Like when they had finished remodeling Carly's room, and Sam had jumped on top of him. He complained when it happened, but truthfully, he didn't mind so much.

Or when she had gone bonkers the other day and spanked him. Literally spanked him. He complained when it happened, but truthfully, he didn't mind so much.

Or right now. When they were both sitting on the Shay's sofa, alone once again and, lo and behold, she placed her leg on his lap. A few seconds later, her other one joined it. He complained when it happened, but truthfully, he didn't mind so much.

Perhaps this was why when Sam, who was reading on the sofa next to Freddie, planted her legs on his lap a second time (she had removed them after he had 'complained' earlier), he said nothing. He just kept reading his own book. True, he had gotten slightly tired of reading, but he supposed he could survive through one more chapter. Just one more chapter.

* * *

><p>Freddie saved the file to his external hard drive, and clicked out of the program. He played through the recently recorded video at quadruple speed, making sure everything came out right. As he did, he saw that he could no longer deny it.<p>

Fredward Benson had kept a video journal for longer than he could remember. At least since he was six, when he had received his first camera for his birthday. He thought it would be cool, being the techno-geek that he was, to leave more than just a written record of his life behind. People who would watch these videos would see how he sounded. Not just how he sounded, but how he _sounded _during X, Y, and Z days of his life. What could be cooler than that?

While Freddie played through this recently recorded video at quadruple speed, seeing not how he sounded but how he _sounded_, it became undeniably clear.

The contents of his video journal, the types of things that he spoke about. They were changing.

* * *

><p>"Go get her Boogie Bear!"<p>

"Eat her alive!"

Freddie and Sam were sitting next to each other in the theater, watching the latest release in a long line of Boogie Bear films. They were all carbon copies of one another, and featured none of the plot-lines from the original books, but they were worth it for the laugh.

At least Freddie and Sam thought so. They hadn't even snuck out of a dopey romance movie to attend this one. They had come by themselves, for themselves.

Freddie felt the inclination to put his arm around the back of Sam's chair again. This time, he didn't fight it. It wasn't such a big deal, was it? Besides, she had no problems putting her legs on his lap. Putting his arm around the back of her chair made them even, the way he saw it.

* * *

><p>They spent a lot of time together now. A lot of time. It had happened so fast too. One day, literally, Freddie was going about his business when he realized that he probably spent more time around Sam lately than anyone else. Carly was a close second, but more and more, he found himself preferring to waste the hours with the blonde instead. And so he did.<p>

* * *

><p>"I WANT IT!"<p>

Freddie hammered the barbell into his spotter's arms. Duke, the wrestler who used to harass Freddie but had become his friend, had to replace Gibby since the Gibson boy was no longer strong enough to safely monitor Freddie's workouts. The beefy wrestler let out a long whistle as he guided the barbell to the holding rack.

"Whoa. Gibby was right. You're an animal."

Freddie grinned.

* * *

><p>"Uh, Carly," Freddie said. He gestured at the empty space on the sofa cushion, on which Carly was preparing to settle. "<em>I<em>...was going to sit there."

"Oh," Carly said. She moved out of the way. "Go right ahead."

"Thanks."

Freddie plopped onto the sofa. Next to Sam. Where he always sat these days while he, the blonde, and the Shays watched movies and ate snacks. Because for some reason, sitting someplace else just didn't feel right.

When he had sat down, Sam peered at him out of the corner of her eye. She smiled, so no one but Freddie could see.

* * *

><p>"In five, four, three, two!"<p>

After Freddie had delivered the countdown, he and Sam dug ferociously into their burgers. Each had ordered a standard quarter pounder from Inside Out Burger. Freddie knew that he could never consume more than the blonde, but that didn't mean he couldn't eat faster than her. On this regard, he at least stood a chance. He had been working out a lot too, which had increased his metabolism, so he was more than eager to try out his new powers.

"I win!" Sam raised her arms in the air victoriously. Freddie hadn't even finished half of his burger yet. He was still no competition for the disposal otherwise known as Samantha Puckett.

"No way, you cheated!" he shouted at her. A baseless accusation, but hey, he had to say something.

"You were sitting there the whole time Benson! If I cheated, then give me the deets!"

"I'll give you the ketchup!"

Freddie squeezed the plastic bottle until he had extinguished all its internal air. Red liquid spurted out of the container, flying into Sam's face. The blonde looked like she had been mauled by Boogie Bear.

"You dork!" Sam swiped an item off the table where they had been sitting. Freddie cringed when he made out its identity through her fingers. "Say 'ello to a lil mustard!"

The Benson boy got sprayed by the yellow substance. Mustard was his least favorite condiment. Which Sam knew all too well.

And he had never been happier.

* * *

><p>"So what, big deal."<p>

"It _is_ a big deal Sam!"

Freddie and the blonde were standing on the fire escape, late on a Tuesday night. The Benson boy had practically dragged Sam out of Carly's apartment, so he could show her.

"This is the closest the moon's been to the earth in over twenty years. And during a full phase. Isn't it, I don't know, kind of beautiful?"

Sam made a 'pshing' noise. "You think the moon's beautiful?" She sounded as if she seriously doubted this.

"Well, yeah. Don't..."

Freddie had been craning his neck to stare at Sam but stopped. There was a mild breeze in the air that night. Presently, it had entered that private space in the fire escape and seemed to be focusing all its attention on Sam. The blonde's golden hair floated gorgeously in the breeze, like something out of a dream, while milky moonlight had splashed over her face and shoulders.

"...you?"

* * *

><p>"Tickle-attack!"<p>

Freddie locked his arms around Sam's leg in an impenetrable grip he had learned from Duke. The blonde had draped the limb over his lap yet again, and now she was going to pay for it. Freddie's fingers quickly went to the bare sole of Sam's foot.

"AH! FREDDIE! DON'T YOU – HAHAHA – I SAID DON'T..._DON'T_..."

Sam went into hysterics. Just as Freddie had suspected, she was very, very ticklish.

"This is what you get Puckett!" Freddie shouted, laughing very hard himself. "I'm not a footstool. And now I've found your one weakness! Maybe I can't out-eat you, but I know your weak spot!"

"I COULD KILL YOU!" Sam let loose an ear-splitting shriek "I COULD KILL YOU! _I _COULD KILL YOU!"

* * *

><p>"I could kill you!" Sam shouted. This time, she was not laughing.<p>

"You could kill me?" Freddie scoffed. "YOU'RE the one who got me detention!"

"I didn't force you into ditching class Benson! You joined me out of your own free will!"

"You still goaded me! I haven't had a high-school detention before! Now I do, and it's gonna be on my permanent record!"

"THEN DON'T HANG AROUND WITH ME ANYMORE!"

"FINE! I WON'T!"

* * *

><p>"Dude, you're slipping."<p>

Freddie couldn't even lift a fraction of what he had done in the previous session. He had thought all the excess rage from his fight with Sam would help, but it only made his form sloppy. He shook his head, disgusted with himself, and with the world in general.

"Something wrong?"

* * *

><p>They met in the hall. In the intersection between 8-C and 8-D. Brown-haired boy. Blonde-haired girl. He hadn't called. She hadn't knocked. They simply couldn't take it anymore at the same time, reached the same decision at the same time, and happened to meet at that exact spot. At the same time.<p>

"I'm sorry," Sam exclaimed, as if someone had accused her of not having been.

"Me too!" Freddie responded, as if someone had been pressuring him to reply faster.

"I shouldn't have made you skip class. I just thought we could have some fun."

"No, I decided to skip class. You were right, it was my own choice."

"Can we just do something together? You and me?"

"_Anything_. I'll do _anything _with you tonight."

* * *

><p><em>'I can't slow down,<em>

_I won't be waiting for you._

_I can't stop now,_

_Because I'm dan-cin'!'_

Up in the iCarly studio, Freddie and Sam were jittering and jiving. And grinning. The clock on Freddie's laptop read past one in the morning, but they didn't care. They had the music on full blast, and they way they saw it, they would keep on dancing until either someone complained, or they passed out.

Personally, Freddie hoped someone would complain. He didn't want to pass out. Because he didn't want to miss a minute of this. He had just had his worst fight ever with Sam. It made him so miserable. So terribly miserable. But they had worked it out. Now they were together again. It made him so happy. So terribly happy. How could he not be? Here he was, dancing opposite to the girl who had somehow, against all odds, probably become his best friend in the world. She was smart, she was funny, she was companionable, she was beautiful, she was sexy, she was...

Freddie stopped dancing.

"What's wrong?"

When Sam had said this, and looked at him, and he at her, the ache, that awful ache, returned. It now covered his entire body.

_Oh no.  
><em>

* * *

><p>He could not stop staring at her.<p>

* * *

><p><em>Everything's perfect. Everything's too, perfect. Everything except for one tiny thing. O<em>_ne tiny, wonderful, but terrifying thing. Just what is it?_

* * *

><p>He could not stop talking about her.<p>

* * *

><p><em>That maybe, she's become more than just my friend. Maybe she's even become more than just a really good, maybe-best friend. Maybe, she's become a lot more.<em>

* * *

><p>He could not stop thinking about her.<p>

* * *

><p><em>It's happening. Oh dear God, I don't want it to happen. I never thought it would happen, but I think it actually is. I think I'm...I think I'm...<em>

* * *

><p>He could not stop...falling for her.<p>

* * *

><p>"WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME?"<p>

Freddie's hands gripped the railing of the fire escape until his knuckles went white. The wind, which had been so gentle that one night while he showed Sam the enlarged moon, whipped at him with unrelenting fury. His hair flapped in it, brown tentacles weaving in the air like a madman's.

"I can't stop staring at her, I can't stop talking about her, I can't stop thinking about her. It's all happening too fast. It's all happening _way_ too fast!"

Freddie stared up at the starlit sky. He felt so helpless. "I never wanted to fall for her. I swore I wouldn't. Why are you doing this to me?"

The Benson boy's hold on the railing intensified.

"It took nearly four years for me to get over Carly. And I barely made it out alive. I can't let myself fall for Sam. There's no way she'd like me back, and if getting over her would be any harder than Carly, which I know it would be, I don't think I could take it!"

Freddie stared spitefully at those white pinpricks.

"Why couldn't you have just taken your time? Why couldn't it have happened nice and slow? Little-by-little, so I could have gotten used to it?"

_Ah, but it did happen little-by-little, _Dark Freddie said. _It happened so subtly, you didn't even see it until it was too late._

"That doesn't matter! It was still too fast!"

_What do you think this is, the movies? You think everything happens in life all nice and neat? Well guess what Benson? Sometimes it happens fast. Sometimes it happens so fast you're not ready for it. It's not fair, but what did you expect? You were blasted in the heart by lightning! And you've got the wound to prove it._

"I'm NOT falling for her!" Freddie glared at the sky, never removing his eyes from it. "Did you hear that? You haven't won yet. I'm not falling for her. At least not yet. Not until I've had more time to get used to it. Not until I've had more time to recover from getting over Carly. Not until I know there's a chance that Sam will ever like me back."

_Time's up. You're scared and you're making excuses. Your wound is approaching its limits. Now how do you think you're going to heal it?_

"Just a little longer," Freddie moaned. He hung his head past his shoulders. "I just need more time, that's all I'm asking for."

* * *

><p>Freddie would get his time. Six months of it. After that, his will, though not necessarily his fears, would be broken. It would fall. Just like that first column.<p>

It would fall on the night of 'The Fever.' And it would only return, reforged and fully matured, on the night of that fateful, monster storm.

**Disclaimer - I do not own iCarly, it's characters, nor any other shows, characters, music, and/or movies that may be referenced.**

**AN: Okay. That was really long, and probably a little too fast. I admit it, hehe. But maybe a little realistic? I know I've fallen fast sometimes, even with someone I knew previously. Anyway, the next chapter will return to the previous pace. The next chapter will start sixth months from where this one ends, just so Freddie can calm down a bit. What is The Fever? Well next chapter will be sort of a build-up. And the one after that will be where things are going to happen. I think you guys will really like it. This story's long overdue for some serious Seddie!  
><strong>


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